LAND SYNOP reports from land stations collected by the Met Office MetDB System

The land based SYNOP messages measurements describe hourly observations from land stations distributed globally. The observations cumulate in around 60,000 reports a day, giving measurements of parameters such as wind speed and direction, maximum and minimum air temperature, sunshine duration, rainfall accumulation, and cloud type. The data are collected by observation stations worldwide and transmitted within the land SYNOP message.

Data are extracted from the Met Office's MetDB system before being sent to CEDA for archiving. These extractions occur at the 4 principal synoptic periods (00-06, 06-12, 12-18 and 18-00 UT).

The dataset contains a range of measurements including:

- Wind speed and wind direction

- Maximum and minimum air and grass temperature

- Horizontal and vertical visibility

- Snow depth

- Dew-point temperature

- Relative humidity

- 3 -hour pressure change

- Height and period of wind waves

- Cloud height and type

- Radiation in last 24 hours

- Maximum gust period

- Past and present weather

- Rainfall accumulation

- Precipitation amount

- Sunshine duration

The wind speed and vertical gust speed are given to the nearest metre per second, and the vertical gust acceleration to the nearest metre per second squared. The wind direction from which the wind blows is measured in Degrees (true). The entry for an east wind is 090, for a south wind it is 180 and so on clockwise. Note that zero values in both wind speed and wind direction fields indicate that there was no wind blowing at the time of observation.

The air temperature, grass temperature and dew-point temperature are measured in Kelvin.

The cloud height, visibility, snow depth, and wind-wave height are given in metres.

Sunshine duration is recorded over 24 hours and over one hour. For the former, the measurement is in hours, but for the latter the measurement is in minutes.

The past weather is recorded as a number between 0-9 which details what the weather has been like in the last 6 hours for observations at 00, 06, 12, 1800 UTC, the last 3 hours for observations at 03, 09, 15, 2100 UTC and the previous hour at any other times. The past weather is only recorded when a manual observation is done at the station.

The relative humidity is measured as a percentage.

Documentation and Links to further information and references (see linked documentation on this record):

Some general information about surface station readings can be obtained from the abridged version of "MIDAS Data Users Guide", provided by the Met Office. This document describes the meteorological surface data in the Met Office Database - MIDAS. This guide is rich in information and is aimed at those with little familiarity with observing methods or instrumentation.

Details of the WMO Meteorological codes used at weather observing stations (daily and hourly weather) explain the codes used in this dataset further.

Date (Publication): 2008-08-08T13:58:04

Date (Creation): 2008-08-08T13:58:04

Citation identifier: https://catalogue.ceda.ac.uk/uuid/9f80d42106ba708f92ada730ba321831

Citation identifier: NCAS British Atmospheric Data Centre (NCAS BADC) / 9f80d42106ba708f92ada730ba321831

Point of contact

Organisation name	Electronic mail address	Role
Met Office	enquiries@metoffice.gov.uk	Author
NCAS British Atmospheric Data Centre (NCAS BADC)	badc@rl.ac.uk	Custodian
NCAS British Atmospheric Data Centre (NCAS BADC)	badc@rl.ac.uk	Distributor
Met Office	enquiries@metoffice.gov.uk	Principal investigator
NCAS British Atmospheric Data Centre (NCAS BADC)	badc@rl.ac.uk	pointofContact
NCAS British Atmospheric Data Centre (NCAS BADC)	badc@rl.ac.uk	Publisher

Maintenance and update frequency: Continual

Update scope: Dataset

Keywords

Met Office
MetDB
SYNOP
meteorology

GEMET - INSPIRE themes, version 1.0

atmospheric conditions

Access constraints: Other restrictions

Other constraints: These data have multiple licences for different applications. Always make sure to read the appropriate licence for full data usage limitations details. Other usage may not be permitted. Restricted data: please submit an application using the REQUEST ACCESS link for access.

Use constraints: Other restrictions

Other constraints: Under the following licence https://artefacts.ceda.ac.uk/licences/specific_licences/ukmo_agreement.pdf, appropriate use of these data may fall under academic use. This message is intended as guidance, always read the full licence. When using these data you must cite them correctly using the citation given on the CEDA Data Catalogue record.

Other constraints: Under the following licence https://artefacts.ceda.ac.uk/licences/specific_licences/ukmo_agreement_gov.pdf, appropriate use of these data may fall under policy use. This message is intended as guidance, always read the full licence. When using these data you must cite them correctly using the citation given on the CEDA Data Catalogue record.

Spatial representation type: Grid

Language: English

Topic category

Climatology, meteorology, atmosphere

Begin date: 2009-04-30T23:00:00

Unique resource identifier: WGS 84

Distribution format

Name	Version
Data are BADC-CSV formatted.

Distributor contact

Organisation name	Individual name	Electronic mail address	Role
NCAS British Atmospheric Data Centre (NCAS BADC)		badc@rl.ac.uk	Distributor

OnLine resource

Protocol	Linkage	Name
	https://catalogue.ceda.ac.uk/uuid/9f80d42106ba708f92ada730ba321831	CEDA Data Catalogue Page

OnLine resource

Protocol	Linkage	Name
	http://data.ceda.ac.uk/badc/ukmo-metdb/data/lndsyn	DOWNLOAD

OnLine resource

Protocol	Linkage	Name
	http://www.wmo.int/pages/prog/www/WMOCodes/Manual/Volume-I-selection/Sel2.pdf	WMO Code Manual

OnLine resource

Protocol	Linkage	Name
	https://artefacts.ceda.ac.uk/badc_datadocs/surface/code.html	WMO Meteorological codes

OnLine resource

Protocol	Linkage	Name
	https://artefacts.ceda.ac.uk/badc_datadocs/ukmo-metdb/lndsyn.html	Further information about the Land SYNOP message

OnLine resource

Protocol	Linkage	Name
	https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7357335	MIDAS User Guide

Hierarchy level: Dataset

Conformance result

Title: Commission Regulation (EU) No 1089/2010 of 23 November 2010 implementing Directive 2007/2/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council as regards interoperability of spatial data sets and services

Date (Publication): 2010-12-08

Statement: Data are extracted from the Met Office's "metDB" system and supplied to BADC. These are then processed to generate BADC-CSV files, where possible. METARS and CLIMAT message types are stored as original message types only within http://data.ceda.ac.uk/badc/ukmo-metdb/raw

Metadata

File identifier: 9f80d42106ba708f92ada730ba321831 XML

Metadata language: English

Character set: UTF8

Parent identifier: Met Office MetDB system: Surface, upper air and satellite data
8ee156b6ed41b153e85dbf02a4134513

Hierarchy level: Dataset

Date stamp: 2025-11-09T03:01:20

Metadata standard name: UK GEMINI

Metadata standard version: 2.3

Metadata author

Organisation name	Individual name	Electronic mail address	Role
NCAS British Atmospheric Data Centre (NCAS BADC)		badc@rl.ac.uk	Point of contact

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