Improved DoD Operational Climate Summaries Through Spatial Quality Control Using Neighboring Sites

Creating authoritative climate summaries to support the DOD’s global mission requires a climatologically sound set of weather observations. The quality of derived climate statistics and products utilized for military operations planning relies on successful detection and correction of errors within the surface weather observation database. The 14th Weather Squadron applies several methods of quality control to weather data pursuant to a climatologically sound set of records for use in operationally effective products. Automated statistical, temporal, and meteorological quality control checks aid in establishing authoritative extreme values. Site-specific statistical checks involving analyst review reduce error and establish a foundation for determining sound extremes for temperatures, pressures, moisture, and winds. Visual aid checks boost the effectiveness of the statistical processes by filtering out obvious errors before applying the statistical programs. A recently developed neighboring sites spatial quality control process captures additional outliers that may be erroneous. This spatial process flags large departures from extremes for established product locations as data dynamically appends to the database each month. The result is an improved set of climate summaries and strengthened confidence for the 14th Weather Squadron and its users.