Manual and AWS Station

Manual and AWS Station

by Bale Leonard -
Number of replies: 2

In Fiji some of our observation stations report manually and also report via Automatic Weather System (AWS). Both the stations have their own WMO Id.

Rotuma Island                 91650

Rotuma Island AWS 91651

Udu Point AWS         91652

Udu Point                 91653

Viwa Island AWS         91670

Viwa Island                 91671

Vanuabalavu AWS         91676

Vanuabalavu                 91677

Nadi Airport                 91680

Nadi AWS                 91681

Vunisea                         91693

Vunisea AWS                 91694

Matuku                         91696

Matuku AWS                 91697

Ono-I-Lau                 91698

Ono-I-Lau AWS         91699

Can anyone advise what is the best way to add this to OSCAR?

Regards,

Len


In reply to Bale Leonard

Re: Manual and AWS Station

by Annalisa Terzo -

Good morning Len.

I’m not sure my suggestions are going to help you, but for what I understand firstly you have to update OSCAR database issueing a new WIGOS ID to all the following stations which, may be, were not present in the previous Vol. A flat file before 30th June 2016.

 

Rotuma Island AWS  91651           

Udu Point                       91653

Viwa Island                    91671

Vanuabalavu                   91677

Nadi AWS                      91681

Vunisea AWS                 91694

Matuku                           91696

Ono-I-Lau                      91698

 

WMO uploaded all the WMO ID mentioned in the previous Vol. A flat file into OSCAR.

After 1st July 2016, it’s a Member responsibility to assign WIGOS ID code to new stations or stations not registered before.

 

Substantially now you have to define a national policy/schema/rule for assigning  Issue Number (3rd field of the WIGOS ID) and Local Identifier (4rd field of the WIGOS ID) in the WIGOS ID.

 

For all Member States, WIGOS Identifier Series (1st field of the WIGOS ID) is equal to zero: WMO decided it.

 

For Fiji Member State, Issuer of Identifier is equal to 242 (2nd field of the WIGOS ID): check ISO 3166-1 table code.

 

All the other stations, you mentioned in your email, have been already registerd on OSCAR by WMO.

 

Once you have assigned the WIGOS ID, you have to contact your National OSCAR  Focal Point to update the metadata of all the stations you need.


Best regards,

Annalisa


In reply to Bale Leonard

Re: Manual and AWS Station

by Luis Filipe NUNES -
Dear Leonard,

My understanding is that you have two sets of equipment at each site: a series of man-operated instruments plus an AWS (automatic instruments).

If this is the case, e.g. at Rotuma Island station, it is not expected that this station will be disseminating two (weather) data streams at the same time, only one data stream of the same kind, such as weather data, is expected from each site, at a certain time, therefore, you just need one WIGOS Station Identifier (WSI) for each site, i.e. for each station. This means that at each site, you may have more than one set of equipment, but they constitute one station only.

You may wish to collect at the site, data from both sets of equipment at the same time, however, at each time there will be only one source of data being disseminated internationally, even if there is a mix of data sources at a certain time; For example, at date-time xyz Rotuma Island station may be sending to GTS the following data: pressure from the manned-instrument, temperature from the AWS, precipitation from the manned-instrument, wind from the AWS, etc.

In conclusion, you don't need two WIGOS station identifiers for Rotuma Island station - this is only one station, so you can use the current WSI (0-20000-0-91650) for any observations coming from this site.

In summary, my recommendation would be to keep one WSI per site, preferably the current ones, unless you/your service have different and strong reasons for not doing so.

Finally, it is important to mention that your country defines a WSIs strategy, basically a set of rules describing how a new station (new site in your country) will be assigned with a WSI, in particular, your country should define how the 3rd and 4th blocks of the WSIs will be used. This is a task that the NFP on WIGOS could coordinate at national level.

I hope this makes sense to you,
Thank you, best regards,
Luis