Common · Literature
SYNOP
Standardized weather observation code
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.
Read more
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. SYNOP information is collected by more than 7600 staffed and unstaffed meteorological stations and more than 2500 mobile stations around the world and is used for weather forecasting and climatic statistics. The format of the original messages is abbreviated, and some items are coded. Following is the general structure of a SYNOP message. The message consists of a sequence of numeric groups, which may also contain slashes (indicating missing data) in addition to numeric digits. Leading numbers are fixed group indicators that indicate the type of observation following, and letters are replaced with numbers giving the weather data. Messages from shipboard weather stations, and in different regions of the world, use variations on this scheme.
Text: Wikipédia, CC BY-SA 4.0. · Image: Wikimedia Commons (Public domain) ·