Earth sciences data formats

thumb|upright|A METAR processing and transmitting unit installed at Pittsburgh-Butler Regional Airport, [[Pennsylvania, U.S.]]

SYNOP (surface synoptic observations) is a numerical code (called FM-12 by WMO) used for reporting weather observations made by staffed and automated weather stations. SYNOP reports are typically sent every six hours by Deutscher Wetterdienst on shortwave and low frequency using RTTY. A report consists of groups of numbers (and slashes where data is not available) describing general weather information, such as the temperature, barometric pressure and visibility at a weather station. It can be decoded by open-source software such as seaTTY, metaf2xml or Fldigi.

Family of file formats

NetCDF (Network Common Data Form) is a set of software libraries and self-describing, machine-independent data formats that support the creation, access, and sharing of array-oriented scientific data. The project homepage is hosted by the Unidata program at the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR). They are also the chief source of netCDF software, standards development, updates, etc. The format is an open standard. NetCDF Classic and 64-bit Offset Format are an international standard of the Open Geospatial Consortium.

thumb|A map from the U.S. National Weather Service showing active SIGMETs

Firsthand aeronautical condition report

GRIB (GRIdded Binary or General Regularly-distributed Information in Binary form) is a concise data format commonly used in meteorology to store historical and forecast weather data. It is standardized by the World Meteorological Organization's Commission for Basic Systems, known under number GRIB FM 92-IX, described in WMO Manual on Codes No.306. Currently there are three versions of GRIB. Version 0 was used to a limited extent by projects such as TOGA, and is no longer in operational use. The first edition (current sub-version is 2) is used operationally worldwide by most meteorological cen

The Binary Universal Form for the Representation of meteorological data (BUFR) is a binary data format maintained by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). The latest version is BUFR Edition 4. BUFR Edition 3 is also considered current for operational use. BUFR was created in 1988 with the goal of replacing the WMO's dozens of character-based, position-driven meteorological codes, such as SYNOP (surface observations), TEMP (upper air soundings) and CLIMAT (monthly climatological data). BUFR was designed to be portable, compact, and universal. Any kind of data can be represented, along wi