What
is Real Time Data?
This is the data that is used in
the weather forecast preparations.
Data Collection
The data is collected from meteorological
stations spread over a very wide geagraphical area of the globe. This is
necessary because the weather systems affecting our region need to studied
in order to come up with a weather prediction.The data is usually coded
in accordance with the World Meteorological
Organisation (WMO) standards.
Data Transmission
The Coded data is transmitted through
the Global Telecommunications
Systems (GTS) either in point to point or broadcast mode.
Reception
The National Meteorological Centres
(NMCs) receive the data and immediately use it for the weather forescast
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Processing of the Real Time
Data at the Computer Services Section
The processing of this data is fully
automated and is carried out in Three stages:
1. Reception
There is a softaware to receive
the data from the communication lines, remove the control codes and store
it in computer text files. This is a continuous process that recycles daily
when all the files involved are refreshed.
2. Decoding
After a defined duratation of time
the received data which is usually encoded is decode. This is done through
a software that activates automatically. The decoded data is seperated
into surface and upper air data files.
3 Plotting
The decoded data is then converted
into graphics that indicated the observed weather parameters. This graphics
ared plotted on charts using wide format printers. The plotted charts are
analysed and used for the weather forecasting production
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