The Path to Achieving Operational Status for NOAA's Meteorological Assimilation Data Ingest System (MADIS)

The Path to Achieving Operational Status for NOAA's Meteorological Assimilation Data Ingest System (MADIS)

Timothy W. McClung and Steven Pritchett NOAA National Weather Service Office of Science and Technology

Greg Pratt, Leon A. Benjamin*, Gopa Padmanabhan*, Tom Kent+, and Leigh Cheatwood+, Michael Vrencur^ NOAA Research-Earth System Research Laboratory/Global Systems Division

*[In collaboration with the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES)] +[In collaboration with the Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere (CIRA)] ^[In collaboration with Ace Info Solutions, Inc]

The Meteorological Assimilation Data Ingest System (MADIS), developed by The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Office of Atmospheric Research (OAR) and the National Weather Service (NWS), extends NOAA's observational networks by collecting, integrating, quality controlling (QC), and distributing observations from NOAA and non-NOAA organizations. MADIS leverages partnerships with international agencies; federal, state, and local agencies (e.g. state Departments of Transportation); universities; volunteer networks; and the private sector (e.g. airlines, railroads) to integrate observations from their stations with those of NOAA to provide a finer density, higher frequency observational database to NOAA and the greater meteorological community. MADIS has become a conduit for collecting and disseminating meteorological observations for the NWS ingesting over 60,000 surface stations as well as upper-air datasets including satellite, wind profiler, radiometer, and automated commercial aircraft observations. MADIS adds value by applying Quality Control (QC) techniques to the observations to assess data validity and by simplifying access to the data. Access is simplified by providing easy to use interfaces to MADIS distribution services and applying standards to the underlying data sets that comprise MADIS. MADIS can also restrict access to data based on provider needs, which allows NOAA to use the data for research and operations without impacting the provider's business model.

MADIS started as a research project in 2001 funded by both OAR and the NWS. In 2007 the NWS and OAR started the transition effort of moving MADIS to operations within the NWS. In 2010 Initial Operating Capability (IOC) at NWS was achieved. Today MADIS is running operationally at the NWS' National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) Central Operations (NCO) as part of the Integrated Dissemination Program (IDP) with the MADIS archive housed at the National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS) National Climate Data Center (NCDC). This presentation will focus on the path taken from 2007 until Q1FY15 in order to achieve Final Operating Capability (FOC) for MADIS at NWS.

Corresponding author:

Steven Pritchett NOAA/NWS/OST – Mail Code W/OST12 1325 East West Hwy Building: SSMC2 Silver Spring,MD 20910-3283 voice 301-427-9121 fax 301-713-0173 email steven.pritchett@noaa.gov

Conference: 31st Conference on Environmental Information Processing Technologies

Requested presentation format: Oral