Start dateEnd date (short events)Event typeAffected dataDescription
07/01/2013
New version of dataMLS ozone data

Acquisition of a new version (Version 3) of MLS ozone data

15/01/2013
ActivationMTSAT-2 AMVs
15/01/2013
Blacklist UpdateMTSAT-2 CSRMTSAT-2 CSR set to passive to allow cycling of VarBC. Data to be used after few days
15/01/2013
Blacklist UpdateMET-10/ASRDisable the VARBC cycling during the satellite relocation
15/01/2013
BlacklistMET-9/ASRBlacklist MET-9/ASR during the satellite relocation
15/01/2013
OutageMETOP-B/GRASPlanned outage (till 4/2/2013) of METOP-B/GRAS. EUMETSAT is undertaking a GRAS instrument parameter test during the second half of January, and potentially into early February, on the Metop-B satellite.
18/01/201324/01/2013TemporaryS-NPP/ATMSTemporary blacklist of ATMS to avoid potential lunar intrusions problems
18/01/201323/01/2013Corrupted metadataSSMI data from F-15SSMI data from F-15 were affected by a problem of date and time. The dates for the start, end, and ascending node are 3 days higher than they should be, sometimes 4 days higher for the start and end times, and the hour for the ascending node time is incorrect. These data were rejected during the pre-processing stage due to this date error. These data are not used by our system. However, ECMWF was affected indirectly by these data via OSTIA SST and sea ice products (using SSMI from F-15). We had a jump of the sea-ice over the North polar region near Alaska (see the analysis from 20130119 12 UTC and 20130120 12 UTC).
22/01/2013
Quality issuesF18 SSMISThe F18 SSMIS (not used at ECMWF) has been experiencing apparently random system wide data anomalies. They can be seen as spikes in either the gains and or OB-BK patterns that last for 3-9 scans per occurrence. The data producer is trying to perform several flight software and hardware mods to hopefully mitigate this issue.
24/01/2013
re-activationMET-10/AMVs Activation of MET-10/AMVs after the successful relocation of MET-10 at 0º.
24/01/2013
Blacklist updateMET-10 All skyPassive monitoring of MET-10 All sky radiances after the successful relocation of MET-10 at 0º
24/01/2013
New data monitoredMETOP-B/IASIStart monitoring the first IASI data from METOP-B
05/02/2013
New data monitoredFY-3B/MWTS and FY-3B/MWHS
05/02/2013
ActivationMTSAT-2 CSRActivation after a period of VarBC cycling
05/02/2013
ActivationMET-10 ASRActivation after a period of VarBC cycling
09/02/201310/02/2013OutageAQUA/AIRSOutage of AIRS. The AIRS scanner went into "power down" mode. It  is now stopped at a scan angle near 14 degrees (nadir is zero). There was no prior warning in any telemetry parameters that anything was amiss. The mode change was nearly instantaneous. The fault occurred during a day/night transition at a high northern latitude. The AIRS operations team and the Goddard Aqua Flight Operations Team and ESMO Project are working together to solve the problem. An attempt to restart the scanner will be made tomorrow, February 9.
10/02/2013
Data resumptionAQUA/AIRSThe AIRS instrument was restored successfully to OPERATE mode.It has now returned to normal operations and is generating valid science data.
5/02/201314/02/2013OutageMETOP-B/IASIMETOP-B/IASI missing. This was due to a change of the EUMETCast reception channel from EPS-19 to EPS-11.
19/02/2013
BlacklistSnow dataBlacklist of snow data from two Canadian stations (71976 and 71743). These two stations are systematically reporting very low snow depth values.
19/02/2013
OutageNPP data (CrIS and ATMS)Outage of NPP data (CrIS and ATMS). The problem is at the level of NOAA/NDE. It appears that the problem has now been solved
26/02/2013
BlacklistSnow dataBlacklist of snow data from two Seberian stations (91.97N/114E and 71.58N/128.92E). These two stations are systematically reporting unrealistic low amounts of snow.
26/02/2013
Technical changeFY3B MWTSUpdate of RTTOV coefficients for FY3B MWTS.
12/03/2013
Blacklist updateIn-situ dataMonthly update of the blacklist for conventional observations. The blacklist contains new stations that will be monitored for a month before we can potentially activate them.
20/03/2013
Blacklist NOAA-17 SBUV
20/03/201325/03/2013BlacklistGOES-15 CSR and AMVsBlacklist GOES-15 CSR and AMVs 20/3 to 25/3 due to yaw manoeuver
20/03/2013
New data monitoredNOAA-19/AVHRR AMVs
20/03/201321/03/2013BlacklistMETOP-A/MHSblacklist of METOP-A/MHS during out of plane manoeuvre and gain change. The gain change is an attempt to slow down the radiometric noise increase.
21/03/2013
OutageMETOP-A dataOutage of METOP-A data (IASI, AMSUA, MHS, HIRS and ASCAT) during the satellite out of plan manoeuvre.
27/03/201315/04/2013Blacklist Blacklist updateJMA wind profilersBlacklist of JMA wind profilers data. The data are being received but JMA has changed the BUFR template (since the beginning of March timeseries). We decided to blacklist the data till we are sure about its quality.
05/04/201306/04/20313
AQUA/AIRSOutage of AIRS due to an on-board problem. The problem has been fixed on 06/04/2013 and the AIRS data are flowing again. However the root cause of the problem is still unknown.
31/03/2013
Quality issuesAMSUA Channel 7 from NOAA-15 and NOAA-19The noise of NOAA-15/AMSUA channel 7 increased suddenly.The noise is still acceptable but high peaks occurred. A blacklist change is being prepared to remove the channel from the system (see timeseries). We also noticed a continuous increase of the radiometric noise of NOAA-19/AMSUA Channel 7. The noise is now beyond the instrument specifications (0.25K)
15/04/2013
ActivationJMA wind profilers: Activate wind data from JMA profilers. Data were checked carefully and the quality is good below 300 hPa (These data were blacklisted further to an untested BUFR template change from JMA)
13/04/201316/04/2013Corrupted metadataDMSP-15/SSM/IOnce again, DMSP-15/SSM/I data were affected by date inconsistencies (2012 instead 2013 inside the files). We rejected the data (which are not directly used) in our pre-processing systems (see timeseries). However, OSI-SAF sea-ice suffered from this problem and resulted in a huge area of missing sea-ice (Thanks to Sarah for passing the information). Probably the OSTIA analysis will be impact by this today or tomorrow (unless they have additional data or the analysis is able to cater with this).
20/04/2013
Quality issuesS-NPP/ATMSSudden increase of the noise of some ATMS channels (see timeseries). This is again caused by the moon intrusion (see space view counts).
24/04/2013
Status changeMetop-BMETOP-B declared operational by EUMETSAT
24/04/2103 29/04/2013Data reduced - internal technical issueMetop-B instrumentsMETOP-B data (AMSUA, MHS and ASCAT) are still severely reduced (by nearly half of the normal count)
29/04/2013
Technical changeSYNOPImplementation of a WMO High Res station list (replacing the standard version). The high resolution list aims to address an issue that appeared in November 2012 just after the implementation of an updated version of WMO station list. The updated list caused a shift in SYNOP lat/lon
26/04/2013
Quality changeF16/SSMISSeveral F16/SSMIS sounding channels started to experience a significant shift of bias and increase of the noise (see time series). ECMWF is not using F16 SSMIS data and we are also not using sounding data from SSMIS in general (although it's planned for 39r1 to start using some WV sounding SSMIS channels) .
09/05/2013
Technical changeS-NPP/ATMSaddition of an ATMS flag for lunar intrusion.
09/05/2013
Data changeSBUV OzoneChange of the assimilation of SBUV Ozone data from the 6 layers product
14/05/2013
ActivationNOAA-15/AMSU-A Channel 7Activation of NOAA-15/AMSU-A Channel 7 after being for one month in the blacklist. Our monitoring statistics showed a return to normal (time series). Channel 7 is an important channel as it's provided temperature information around the Tropopause. Only 2  AMSUA channel 7 (METOP-B and NOAA-18) are being used currently.
14/05/2013
New data monitoredMETOP-B/AVHRR AMVs
14/05/201320/05/2013BlacklistMET-7 dataTemporary blacklist of MET-7 data during ground segment maintenance and east-west station keeping manoeuvre
15/05/2013
Blacklist updateIn-situ data
22/05/2013
ActivationMETOP-B/GRASActive assimilation of METOP-B/GRAS after a long period of passive monitoring
22/05/2013
OutageGOES-13Outage of GOES-13. The anomaly is being investigated by NOAA. As a precautionary measure, GOES-13 data (AMVs and CSR) are blacklisted
04/06/2013
data reductionAMDAR and AIREPSevere drop of AMDAR and AIREP data due to an internal technical issue that has been solved (see timeseries).
12/06/2013
Re-activationGOES-13
18/06/201324/06/2013OutageMETEOSAT-10 ASRMETEOSAT-10 All Sky Radiances missing due to an update by EUMETSAT of the BUFR format
24/06/2013
BlacklistMTSAT-2 (CSR and AMVs)Blacklist of MTSAT-2 data (CSR and AMVs) as a precaution before the North-South Manoeuvre on 26/06/2013
24/06/201303/07/2013BlacklistMETOP-A/GRASBlacklist METOP-A/GRAS due to a planned instrument maintenance.
01/07/201316/07/2013BlacklistMET-10 data (ASR and AMVs)Blacklist of MET-10 data (ASR and AMVs) due to SEVIRI decontamination from 01 July 2013 08:00 UTC - 09 July 2013 09:15 UTC.
01/07/2013
Quality issuesNOAA-19/HIRSNoise increase for NOAA-19/HIRS (see overview plot). From NOAA housekeeping data it seems that the anomaly is caused by the filter wheel (the filter wheel and filter wheel housing temperature has increased too)
10/07/2013
Activation postponedMTSAT-2 (CSR and AMVs)Activation of MTSAT-2 data (CSR and AMVs) has been postponed till the upcoming manoeuvres are completed and the data checked
12/07/201317/07/2013Quality issueswind speedNCEP reported about a problem that affected wind speed (wrong unit was used) from SYNOP data routed via Washington. ECMWF analysis was not affected as we are not using surface winds over land.
15/07/2013
Data changeGOME-2On the 15th of July, EUMETSAT started the GOME-2 tandem operations with METOP-A/GOME-2 covering a reduced swath 960 km (leading to a better precision) and METOP-B/GOME-2 with a large swath (1920 km). As we can see from our monitoring, the bias of the total column ozone decreased substantially (see time series).
25/07/2013
Data suspendedMODIS Terra Water Vapor Polar WindsSuspension of the MODIS Terra Water Vapor Polar Winds due to increased striping that has been observed on NASA's MODIS Terra water vapour channels. These are  impacting the production of the polar wind vectors. As a precaution, the data will be blacklisted on Monday (29/07/2013)
29/07/2013
ActivationMTSAT-2 AMVsActivation of MTSAT-2 AMVs after a relatively long period in the blacklist due to several manoeuvres. MTSAT-2 CSR are still in the blacklist
29/07/201307/08/2013BlacklistGOES-13 and GOES-15 AMVsBlacklist of GOES-13 and GOES-15 AMVs due to a change in the temporal resolution from 3 hours to 1 hour. Data quality needs to be checked
31/07/2013
ActivationMTSAT-2 CSR
31/07/2013
ActivationMETOP-B/ASCATActivation of METOP-B/ASCAT and update of METOP-A and METOP-B ASCAT sigma nought and wind bias correction coefficients
31/07/2013:
Quality issuesMETOP-A/AMSUA channel 3EUMETSAT just declared METOP-A/AMSUA Channel 3 as out of specifications (see radiometric noise). Our monitoring statistics (even the long term ones) are not showing a noticeable change of the noise. This is because of the combination of the spatial average we do and most importantly the magnitude of departure is significantly larger than the NEAT specifications. Although this channel is not used directly but it's really important for the cloud detection tests. The channel will continue to be used but we will keep an eye on it.
26/07/2013
Quality issuesMETOP-A and METOP-B AMSUAMETOP-A and METOP-B AMSUA data were affected by a serious problem over the North polar region. The obs values were wrongly warmer by 20 degrees than they should be (see timeseries). As the other satellites were not affected by this problem it's very likely that it's due to a glitch in EUMETSAT ground segment processing. The 4D-VAR managed to reject these observations. 
17/08/2013
OutageNOAA-19/HIRSWe stopped receiving data from NOAA-19/HIRS. These data have been blacklisted since 9/7/2013 due to increased noise.
06/09/201312/09/2013OutageJason-2Jason-2 instrument went into safe mode (the second during the last few months). The safe mode is likely to be due to a corrupted memory slots. CNES switched the instrument to the Primary Module (PM1) and it's analysing the cause of these safe modes.
21/09/201323/09/2013OutageNPP CrIS and ATMS
22/09/201323/09/2013OutageOceanSat-2 OSCATAccording to EUMETSAT, the problem is most likely connected to a processing error and ISRO and EUMETSAT are working on a solution of the problem.
26/09/2013
ActivationAUTO-METARActivation of AUTO-METAR data. Data were checked and they look good. The number of "used" METAR data increased significantly (see timeseries).
22/10/201326/12/2013OutageMTSAT-2Due to the annual maintenance of MTSAT-2 ground segment, CSR and AMVs from MTSAT-2 are not disseminated. Instead JMA is distributing MTSAT-1R data
31/10/2013
ActivationMTSAT-1R CSR and AMVs.
5/11/20138/11/2013OutageMETOP-A/IASIOutage of METOP-A/IASI due to the upload of new software version to the Instrument Management System.
14/11/2013
BlacklistTRMM/TMIA temporary blacklist is being prepared to deal with a sudden odd behaviour of TRMM/TMI bias (see time series). Update (18/11/2013): TMI statistics are back to normal (see timeseries). RD is planning to activate the data on Wednesday after the implementation of 40R1
18/11/2013
Quality issuesMETOP-A/AMSUAAs expected METOP-A/AMSUA Channel 8 noise kept increasing and it's now above specifications (see timeseries). The EARS team decided not to produce it any more (for the EARS streams). RD decided to put it out of the system (permanently) as no benefit is expected from it.
20/11/2013
BlacklistNPP ATMSWe were informed about a change to the antenna pattern correction for NPP ATMS is being introduced. This will affect the bias characteristics of the data (not details are provided). RD are planning to blacklist ATMS temporarily on Wednesday (20/11/2013)
26/11/2013
Blacklist updateNPP ATMSATMS activated after few days of blacklist to allow the adaptation of the VarBC to the antenna pattern correction
28/11/201303/12/2013OutageOCEANSAT/OSCAT
03/12/2013
New data monitoredMetop-B/GOME2 Ozone
04/12/2013
Blacklist JMA profilersBlacklist JMA profilers to allow preparation for the upcoming reporting practices.
18/12/2013
BlacklistMTSAT-1R CSR and AMVs
24/12/201327/12/2013Quality issuesMETOP-B/AMSU-B Ch 9Sudden increase of the noise associated to METOP-B/AMSU-B Ch 9 (see timeseries). The problem triggered severe alarms for few cycles. It showed up in NOAA/NESDIS monitoring too (see NEDT). The noise went back to normal after few days but the root cause remains unknown.
19/11/201308/01/2014technical issuesASAP radiosondesRejection of ASAP and Dropsonde data since the implementation of 40R1