NOAA Research system, developed at the Earth System Research

Laboratory (ESRL), that serves the meteorological community by

supporting observation collection integration, quality control, and

distribution of thousands of NOAA and non-NOAA observations, including

over 40,000 surface mesonet stations from local, state, and federal

agencies, and private networks, as well as upper-air datasets

including multi-agency wind profiler and automated, commercial

aircraft observations. The mesonet database includes Road Weather

Information System observations from state Departments of

Transportation, as well as real-time observations from the Remote

Automated Weather Stations (RAWS) network, the Cooperative Mesonets in

the Western U.S. (MesoWest) network, the WeatherBug and UrbaNet

networks operated by AWS Convergence Technologies, Inc., the Citizen

Weather Observing Program (CWOP) network, and others, many of which

provide dense observations in urban areas. MADIS receives these

observations in different formats, units, and time stamps, and

provides them in a single uniform database. Additionally, MADIS

supplies data providers with quality control and station monitoring

information to assist in their maintenance activities and to enhance

and promote the mutual benefits of public/private data sharing.

Organizations receiving MADIS data feeds include National Weather

Service (NWS) forecast offices, the NWS National Centers for

Environmental Prediction, the National Center for Atmospheric

Research, and many major universities and commercial weather

businesses.

In 2007, the NOAA Research Council and NOAA Transition Board rated

MADIS as one of NOAA's highest priority research-to-operations

transition projects. Overall plans for the transition include the

implementation of MADIS real-time capabilities at the NWS and the

transfer of existing MADIS saved datasets and future archive

responsibilities to the NESDIS National Climatic Data Center. The NWS

transition approach will consist of an integrated NWS

Telecommunications (TOC) and National Centers for Environmental

Prediction Central Operations (NCO) distributed system. ESRL will

remain as the primary MADIS Research and Development organization, and

will host a research-to-operations test environment facility within

the ESRL/GSD Central Facility.

This poster will provide a status update on the existing MADIS system,

a general overview of MADIS transition plans, and will also cover

plans for upgrades to MADIS datasets and services. Companion papers,

by D. Helms et al. and M.F. Barth et al., will provide additional

information on the MADIS transition to NOAA operations and on urban

observations available from the MADIS database.

Note - Leon A. Benjamin is also affiliated with Systems Research Group, Inc.