How to distribute real-time marine observations for meteorologists

Many valuable, environmental observations taken by universities and laboratories in the U.S. coastal zone are not used by the National Weather Service (NWS) and other meteorologists. In 2001, approximately a dozen universities were collecting environmental data in real-time from buoys and fixed stations near the U.S. coast and posting them on various Web sites. However, in order to appear on meteorological workstations and be assimilated into numerical prediction models, the measurements must be coded into a World Meteorological Organization (WMO) code form and transmitted to or collected by the NWS. This encoding and transmission has not occurred because many research agencies lack either this knowledge or the resources, and the NWS does not have a single focal point for these issues. This paper describes how the National Data Buoy Center (NDBC) has taken steps to help solve this problem.