As of 16 June 2016 buoys reports in BUFR are being assimilated in NWP systems at the Meteorological Service of Canada (MSC).   After synop and radiosondes, buoys reports in BUFR are now allowed in both CMC's analyses and NWP systems.  More specifically, these buoys will be present in :

  • SST analysis;
  • Surface (2m) temperature and surface dew point depression analyses;
  • Upper air analyses for both the GDPS and RDPS. 

As for synop and radiosondes, precedence is given to TAC buoys when present.  BUFR only buoy reports may be used when TAC buoys are no longer available.  With more and more buoys reporting only in BUFR as with the end of the distribution of FM18 BUOY data scheduled on September 1st  2016 from Météo-France (LFPW), CLS Toulouse (LFVW) and CLS America (KARS), analyses and NWP systems were modified to include buoys in BUFR only.  At the moment when future FM18 switch off occurs, MSC's systems will be able to integrate BUFR only reports.

Work on the integration of ships in BUFR continues at CMC. 

2 Comments

  1. Judy St-James

    Work on the integration of ships in BUFR has begun at CMC.  There seems to be more ships in BUFR reporting the surface pressure (P0) than in TAC.

  2. Judy St-James

    While integrating ships in BUFR in our global Deterministic Prediction system, we found that giving precedence to mean sea-level pressure over surface pressure, when the height is unknown, gave better results on forecasts.