I live about a mile from Filton aerodrome (EGTG) and have recently been
getting the METAR and TAF reports by FTP from NOAA
(ftp://tgftp.nws.noaa.gov/) and then having fun learning how to decode
them. I know the same info is readily available in easy to digest form
from various websites, but I prefer to do it this way if possible.

However, Filton seems not to publish these reports all the time (the
last METAR yesterday afternoon was at 1520, ISTR) and this may well be
because it is not a 24/7 active airfield, yet observations from there
are finding their way to the Met Office at least hourly - as seen at
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/...t_weather.html

Is there a source of these readings in 'raw' form, rather than as pretty
graphs, that I can easily access?

TIA

--
Bob Cox. Stoke Gifford, near Bristol, UK. http://pippin.co.uk/
Registered user #445000 with the Linux Counter: http://counter.li.org/
Debian on NSLU2 Slug: http://bobcox.com/slug/

"Bob Cox" wrote ...
I live about a mile from Filton aerodrome (EGTG) and have recently
been
getting the METAR and TAF reports by FTP from NOAA
(ftp://tgftp.nws.noaa.gov/) snip
However, Filton seems not to publish these reports all the time (the
last METAR yesterday afternoon was at 1520, ISTR) and this may well
be
because it is not a 24/7 active airfield, yet observations from
there
are finding their way to the Met Office at least hourly - as seen at
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/...t_weather.html

.... there is, but you will need to know how to decode a SYNOP report.

The feed that populates the Met Office web site is from the
fully-automatic AWS at the airfield, with the
station number 03628; the METARs for EGTG, as you have worked out, are
only issued when ATC are open - they will use the same basic data from
the local AWS unit, but it is presented to the duty ATCO before
transmission in that format; the SYNOP leaves the airfield untouched -
this happens from many airfields now around the country.

Although the SYNOPs do get issued hourly overnight etc., on the
Internet we don't get to see them as routine as they are not declared
as part of the 'Resolution 40' regime which allows such data to reach
the public domain.

Martin.



--
Martin Rowley
E:
W: booty.org.uk

In article ,
Martin Rowley wrote:

"Bob Cox" wrote ...
I live about a mile from Filton aerodrome (EGTG) and have recently
been
getting the METAR and TAF reports by FTP from NOAA
(ftp://tgftp.nws.noaa.gov/) snip
However, Filton seems not to publish these reports all the time (the
last METAR yesterday afternoon was at 1520, ISTR) and this may well
be
because it is not a 24/7 active airfield, yet observations from
there
are finding their way to the Met Office at least hourly - as seen at
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/...t_weather.html

... there is, but you will need to know how to decode a SYNOP report.

The feed that populates the Met Office web site is from the
fully-automatic AWS at the airfield, with the
station number 03628; the METARs for EGTG, as you have worked out, are
only issued when ATC are open - they will use the same basic data from
the local AWS unit, but it is presented to the duty ATCO before
transmission in that format; the SYNOP leaves the airfield untouched -
this happens from many airfields now around the country.

Although the SYNOPs do get issued hourly overnight etc., on the
Internet we don't get to see them as routine as they are not declared
as part of the 'Resolution 40' regime which allows such data to reach
the public domain.

Thank you Martin very much indeed for the information. All very
interesting. Armed with SYNOP a bit of googling led me to the
http://www.ogimet.com/ website where the magic number 03628 has given me
something to play with.

Thank you once again and also to Frank who emailed me from Jersey with
similar help and guidance.

--
Bob Cox. Stoke Gifford, near Bristol, UK. http://pippin.co.uk/
Registered user #445000 with the Linux Counter: http://counter.li.org/
Debian on NSLU2 Slug: http://bobcox.com/slug/

In article ,
Martin Rowley wrote:

"Bob Cox" wrote ...
I live about a mile from Filton aerodrome (EGTG) and have recently
been
getting the METAR and TAF reports by FTP from NOAA
(ftp://tgftp.nws.noaa.gov/) snip
However, Filton seems not to publish these reports all the time (the
last METAR yesterday afternoon was at 1520, ISTR) and this may well
be
because it is not a 24/7 active airfield, yet observations from
there
are finding their way to the Met Office at least hourly - as seen at
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/...t_weather.html

... there is, but you will need to know how to decode a SYNOP report.

The feed that populates the Met Office web site is from the
fully-automatic AWS at the airfield, with the
station number 03628; the METARs for EGTG, as you have worked out, are
only issued when ATC are open - they will use the same basic data from
the local AWS unit, but it is presented to the duty ATCO before
transmission in that format; the SYNOP leaves the airfield untouched -
this happens from many airfields now around the country.

Although the SYNOPs do get issued hourly overnight etc., on the
Internet we don't get to see them as routine as they are not declared
as part of the 'Resolution 40' regime which allows such data to reach
the public domain.

Thank you again for the various replies I have received. It was much
appreciated.

To follow-up on this, I decided that as much of the information was
there on the normal Met Office website and updated hourly, the easiest
approach was to make use of these easier to find data and forget about
the METAR and SYNOP approach for now.

My experiments to date involve taking the Filton information from this
page:

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/...t_weather.html

and appending it hourly [1] to a file, which is temporarily accessible
he

http:/bobcox.com/filton-weather/data.txt

[1] The Met Office website is updated at about 30-40 minutes past the
hour, so the automatic update of the file takes place at 45 minutes past
each hour.

--
Bob Cox. Stoke Gifford, near Bristol, UK. http://pippin.co.uk/
Registered user #445000 with the Linux Counter: http://counter.li.org/
Debian on NSLU2 Slug: http://bobcox.com/slug/