TURKISH STATE METEOROLOGICAL SERVICE THE STUDIES ON MIGRATION TO TABLE DRIVEN CODE FORMS (TDCF) AT TSMS 5TH INTERNATIONAL COURSE ON METEOROLOGICAL TELECOMMUNICATION AND METCAP SOFTWARE, TURKEY-ALANYA, SEPTEMBER 2010

TSMS – MIGRATION TO TDCF HISTORICAL OVERVIEW Before 2006, the minor and individual activities concerning TDCF were carried out at TSMS. These activities mainly related to encoding and decoding of some BUFR and GRIB messages. These activities; Integrated BUFR encode/decode software was requested from RADAR providers and installed. GRIB decode/encode software was developed. Distribution of NWP data in GRIB format started. 5TH INTERNATIONAL COURSE ON METEOROLOGICAL TELECOMMUNICATION AND METCAP SOFTWARE, TURKEY-ALANYA, SEPTEMBER 2010

TSMS – MIGRATION TO TDCF HISTORICAL OVERVIEW At the end of 2005 “TDCF Working Group” was established by Head of Weather Forecast Department. The members of WG mainly have both meteorology and software background. The WG included members from Telecommunication, Aviation, Satellite and NWP divisions. Two main objectives that the Group was focused on: Creating an infrastructure for development of an appropriate encoding/decoding software. Preparation of national migration plan according to WMO plan and coordinate to necessary works. 5TH INTERNATIONAL COURSE ON METEOROLOGICAL TELECOMMUNICATION AND METCAP SOFTWARE, TURKEY-ALANYA, SEPTEMBER 2010

TSMS – MIGRATION TO TDCF HISTORICAL OVERVIEW Monthly meetings were held by the Group with specified agenda and many activities were performed in 2006. Some of them are: Development, installation and maintenance of BUFR encode/decode and GRIB2 decode software for general purpose. Determination of name convention for Code/Flag tables. Software development to perform automatic Code/Flag tables files. Preparation of draft Migration Schedule for Turkey according to WMO’s schedule. TDCF Web and FTP sides were established for introduction to TSMS staffs. A presentation was given concerning BUFR to some TSMS staff. SYNOP template was constituted according to RA VI. 5TH INTERNATIONAL COURSE ON METEOROLOGICAL TELECOMMUNICATION AND METCAP SOFTWARE, TURKEY-ALANYA, SEPTEMBER 2010

TSMS – MIGRATION TO TDCF HISTORICAL OVERVIEW Code Migration Schedule for Turkey Category  Cat.1: common Cat.2: satellite observations Cat.3: aviation Cat. 4: maritime Cat. 5: miscellaneous Cat. 6: almost obsolete Lists of  Traditional code forms Schedule  SYNOP SYNOP MOBIL PILOT PILOT MOBIL TEMP TEMP MOBIL TEMP DROP CLIMAT CLIMAT TEMP SAREP SATEM SARAD SATOB METAR SPECI TAF AMDAR ROFOR BUOY TRACKOB BATHY TESAC WAVEOB SHIP CLIMAT SHIP PILOT SHIP TEMP SHIP CLIMAT TEMP SHIP RADOB IAC IAC FLEET GRID(to GRIB) MAFOR HYDRA HYFOR RADOF CODAR ICEAN GRAF NACLI etc. SFAZI SFLOC SFAZU RADREP ROCOB ROCOB SHIP ARFOR WINTEM Start experimental Exchange Nov. 2007 - Sep. 2008 2007 Start operational exchange Apr. 2008 Apr. 2009 Migration complete Sep. 2010 2014 2011 2008 5TH INTERNATIONAL COURSE ON METEOROLOGICAL TELECOMMUNICATION AND METCAP SOFTWARE, TURKEY-ALANYA, SEPTEMBER 2010

TSMS – MIGRATION TO TDCF HISTORICAL OVERVIEW In addition to those activities the new MSS (Message Switching System) was established at HQ of TSMS at the end of the 2006. During the new MSS design, tender evaluation and installation period, the Group advised the related staff in frame of TDCF matters. (Two member of the Group was also involved MSS tender process.) After installation and testing of the new MSS had success, compiling SYNOP and TEMP messages in BUFR and GRIB2 decoding capabilities of the software tested. These tests found almost satisfying except some minor problems. Test activities of the other observations (such as CLIMAT, METAR etc.) are still ongoing. 5TH INTERNATIONAL COURSE ON METEOROLOGICAL TELECOMMUNICATION AND METCAP SOFTWARE, TURKEY-ALANYA, SEPTEMBER 2010

TSMS – MIGRATION TO TDCF SOFTWARE INTEGRATION TSMS utilizes its own meteorological data dissemination, collecting, processing and visualization system (called TURKMETCAP) operationally at hundreds of terminals countrywide that was developed by TSMS’s staff. This is main software application that must be integrated with BUFR encoder/decoder and GRIB 2 decoder providing MSS provider. Besides, there are several software applications, which are collecting meteorological data that must be integrated with them. 5TH INTERNATIONAL COURSE ON METEOROLOGICAL TELECOMMUNICATION AND METCAP SOFTWARE, TURKEY-ALANYA, SEPTEMBER 2010

TSMS – MIGRATION TO TDCF TELECOMMUNICATION TSMS has powerful telecommunication infrastructure and it is not expected that binary data exchange will cause any major negative effect. It has been thought that dual dissemination is also possible by this infrastructure. 5TH INTERNATIONAL COURSE ON METEOROLOGICAL TELECOMMUNICATION AND METCAP SOFTWARE, TURKEY-ALANYA, SEPTEMBER 2010

TSMS – MIGRATION TO TDCF TRAINING TSMS has more than two thousand staff that are involving technical activities, such that observation, weather forecast and research, as a daily work at countrywide. In this respect, a number of staff must be trained at least in first level, for providing the basic understanding of BUFR and CREX concepts in due course. In addition to this, international training workshop concerning TDCF is planned that to be held at RTC of Turkey if could have been obtained technical support by international organizations. 5TH INTERNATIONAL COURSE ON METEOROLOGICAL TELECOMMUNICATION AND METCAP SOFTWARE, TURKEY-ALANYA, SEPTEMBER 2010

TSMS – MIGRATION TO TDCF SUMMARIZED MILESTONES Decision by senior administrators on migration Constitution of a Work Group Learning the main principals and detailed contents of Table Driven Code Forms Research and analysis of some decoding/encoding programmes which developed by ECMWF and some other organizations 5TH INTERNATIONAL COURSE ON METEOROLOGICAL TELECOMMUNICATION AND METCAP SOFTWARE, TURKEY-ALANYA, SEPTEMBER 2010

TSMS – MIGRATION TO TDCF SUMMARIZED MILESTONES Some studies carried out on code and flag tables, Creating a template for SYNOP Brief information about BUFR and GRIB2 given to some TSMS staff (Database administrators) The Message Switching System was changed with a new one A new contact point for TDCF assigned 5TH INTERNATIONAL COURSE ON METEOROLOGICAL TELECOMMUNICATION AND METCAP SOFTWARE, TURKEY-ALANYA, SEPTEMBER 2010

TSMS – MIGRATION TO TDCF SUMMARIZED MILESTONES WMO and the connected RTHs were noticed about BUFR dissemination (SYNOP and TEMP) BUFR dissemination started for SYNOP and TEMP bulletins 5TH INTERNATIONAL COURSE ON METEOROLOGICAL TELECOMMUNICATION AND METCAP SOFTWARE, TURKEY-ALANYA, SEPTEMBER 2010

TSMS – MIGRATION TO TDCF NOTIFICATION ABOUT BUFR DISSEMINATION Informing WMO and WWW centres The official notification letter by TSMS: “Dear Sir, I would like to refer to migration to Table Driven Code Forms (TDCF). In accordance with the WMO instructions and advices, Turkish State Meteorological Service (TSMS) carrying out some studies on TDCF. We are generating BUFR bulletins for SYNOP and TEMP messages for some time locally. Within this period, we tested the messages’ contents and our MSS system, and were determined that our system is ready to disseminate BUFR bulletins. Briefly, we intend to start international dissemination of Turkey’s SYNOP and TEMP messages in also BUFR format beginning from 01st May 2008. The detailed information on these BUFR messages, such as header, centre, message content, etc… is attached to this letter. I kindly request your approval on this start date and confirmation on this notification. Thanks to you in advance for your co-operation and interest on this matter.” 5TH INTERNATIONAL COURSE ON METEOROLOGICAL TELECOMMUNICATION AND METCAP SOFTWARE, TURKEY-ALANYA, SEPTEMBER 2010

TSMS – MIGRATION TO TDCF NOTIFICATION ABOUT BUFR DISSEMINATION SYNOPTIC NUMBER, STATION NAME AND HEADER INFORMATION FOR TURKEY’S NEW BUFR BULLETINS (VALID BY 01ST MAY 2008) TAC BULLETIN HEADER STATION NUMBER STATION NAME CENTRE TDCF BULLETIN HEADER MESSAGE CONTENT SITU10 SMTU10 SNTU10 17022 Zonguldak ANKARA (LTAA) ISID10 ISMD10 ISND10 SYNOPTIC 17031 Carsamba Airport 17038 Trabzon Airport 17050 Edirne … TAC BULLETIN HEADER STATION NUMBER STATION NAME CENTRE TDCF BULLETIN HEADER MESSAGE CONTENT USTU10 UKTU10 ULTU10 UETU10 17240 Isparta ANKARA (LTAA) IUSD10 UPPER LEVEL (TEMP) 17281 Diyarbakir … 5TH INTERNATIONAL COURSE ON METEOROLOGICAL TELECOMMUNICATION AND METCAP SOFTWARE, TURKEY-ALANYA, SEPTEMBER 2010

TSMS – MIGRATION TO TDCF THE DIFFICULTIES THAT WE FACED WITH Code/Flag tables The format of code/flag tables provided by WMO is not compatible with software applications (the *.doc format is not easy to use in programme codes) The BUFR encoder part of the MSS software Some problems encountered with the BUFR encoding part of the MSS software such as; The first matter was about “A2” part of header. A2=D indicates that the station is in the area of 90° E – 0° northern hemisphere. But some of our bulletins contained “A2=Z”, such as “ISIZ14, ISMZ14, ISNZ62…”. This “Z” indicates that the latitude and longitude values of that station is unavailable or not known. We needed software to compile our bulletins only with A2=D. The software developer was informed about this problem and this problem was solved in a short time. 5TH INTERNATIONAL COURSE ON METEOROLOGICAL TELECOMMUNICATION AND METCAP SOFTWARE, TURKEY-ALANYA, SEPTEMBER 2010

TSMS – MIGRATION TO TDCF THE DIFFICULTIES THAT WE FACED WITH The BUFR encoder part of the MSS software Some problems encountered with the BUFR encoding part of the MSS software such as; The second matter was about the “ii” part of the header. The bulletins which we intend to disseminate internationally are with ii values of “10, 11, 12, 13, 60, 61, 62, 63”. But again according to WMO instructions the values between 01-45 are allocated for fixed land stations and the values between 46-59 are allocated for mobile land stations. For the values of ii=“10,11,12 and 13” there is no problem. But for the other bulletins containing ii values as “60, 61, 62 and 63” may cause problem on international dissemination. For eliminating this problem we revised our bulletin groups and segregated some bulletins for only local dissemination. 5TH INTERNATIONAL COURSE ON METEOROLOGICAL TELECOMMUNICATION AND METCAP SOFTWARE, TURKEY-ALANYA, SEPTEMBER 2010

TSMS – MIGRATION TO TDCF THE DIFFICULTIES THAT WE FACED WITH The BUFR encoder part of the MSS software Some problems encountered with the BUFR encoding part of the MSS software such as; The software compiled "SITU" synoptic bulletins as BUFR bulletin with "ISND" header, and "SNTU" bulletins with ISID header. That is, it generated "ISND" BUFR bulletins at the hours of 03,09,15 and 21. And naturally, generated "ISID" bulletins at ISND's hours. This problem immediately was solved by the software developer after we informed them. 5TH INTERNATIONAL COURSE ON METEOROLOGICAL TELECOMMUNICATION AND METCAP SOFTWARE, TURKEY-ALANYA, SEPTEMBER 2010

TSMS – MIGRATION TO TDCF THE DIFFICULTIES THAT WE FACED WITH The BUFR encoder part of the MSS software Some problems encountered with the BUFR encoding part of the MSS software such as; Data sub-categories are "0" for both "ISND" and "ISID" BUFR bulletins. It should be "1" for intermediate synops and "0" for non-standard synoptic bulletins. We informed the software developer about this matter and they responded as : “The meaning of sub-categories is to be defined locally, so we will adjust the value to fulfil your requirements.” We still waiting for the company to fix this problem. 5TH INTERNATIONAL COURSE ON METEOROLOGICAL TELECOMMUNICATION AND METCAP SOFTWARE, TURKEY-ALANYA, SEPTEMBER 2010

TSMS – MIGRATION TO TDCF THE DIFFICULTIES THAT WE FACED WITH The BUFR encoder part of the MSS software Some problems encountered with the BUFR encoding part of the MSS software such as; Horizontal visibility is being encoded in kilometers. But it should be encoded in meters. So, in our BUFR bulletins, it seems as if the visibility is "10 meters" instead of "10 000 meters". We informed the software developer about this matter and they responded as: “This was already fixed in newer version”. So, we still waiting for correction or an update for fixing this problem. 5TH INTERNATIONAL COURSE ON METEOROLOGICAL TELECOMMUNICATION AND METCAP SOFTWARE, TURKEY-ALANYA, SEPTEMBER 2010

TSMS – MIGRATION TO TDCF THE DIFFICULTIES THAT WE FACED WITH The BUFR encoder part of the MSS software Some problems encountered with the BUFR encoding part of the MSS software such as; In all BUFR messages there are 4 cloud layers. It may be caused from the usage of vertical significance (0 08 002). We informed the software developer about this matter and they responded as: “If what you complain about is the presence of four empty (beside the significance) layers, then the answer is it has been fixed in newer version”. So, we still waiting for correction or an update for fixing this problem. 5TH INTERNATIONAL COURSE ON METEOROLOGICAL TELECOMMUNICATION AND METCAP SOFTWARE, TURKEY-ALANYA, SEPTEMBER 2010

TSMS – MIGRATION TO TDCF THE DIFFICULTIES THAT WE FACED WITH The BUFR encoder part of the MSS software Some problems encountered with the BUFR encoding part of the MSS software such as; The "IUPD" header is used for our upper level BUFR bulletins. And standard and significant levels are separated in our BUFR messages (that should be included in the same BUFR message). We informed the software developer about this matter and they responded as: “There is no suggestion on TTAA from your side. From the list of abbreviated WMO headings. I can see it should definitely changed to IUK* for BUFR encoded TEMPs. MW is not able to compile TEMP messages containing A(C) or B(D) altogether”. So, we still waiting for correction or an update for fixing this problem. 5TH INTERNATIONAL COURSE ON METEOROLOGICAL TELECOMMUNICATION AND METCAP SOFTWARE, TURKEY-ALANYA, SEPTEMBER 2010

TSMS – MIGRATION TO TDCF THE DIFFICULTIES THAT WE FACED WITH The BUFR encoder part of the MSS software Some problems encountered with the BUFR encoding part of the MSS software such as; The another item is about the time identification of upper-air data. In our BUFR messages, the standard time of sounding such as "00:00" or "12:00" is included but the actual time of launch not (the 8GGgg group following 31313 in traditional TEMP). We informed the software developer about this matter and they responded as: “For BUFR encoded A(B) reports the time of observation is correct, it is not correct only for C(D) reports, because they expect to be encoded altogether with A(B) reports. So even BUFR encoded TEMPs C(D) would contain correct observation time (eg. time of launch)”. So, we still waiting for correction or an update for fixing this problem. 5TH INTERNATIONAL COURSE ON METEOROLOGICAL TELECOMMUNICATION AND METCAP SOFTWARE, TURKEY-ALANYA, SEPTEMBER 2010

TSMS – MIGRATION TO TDCF THE DIFFICULTIES THAT WE FACED WITH The BUFR encoder part of the MSS software Some problems encountered with the BUFR encoding part of the MSS software such as; The other problem is about the time of compilation. For example; MW compiles a TEMP message at 01:40Z and when converting that to BUFR it  creates a header like “IUPD10 LTAA 070235”. Naturally, MW generates an error message like “Too early or too late”. We informed the software developer about this matter. So, we still waiting for correction or an update for fixing this problem. 5TH INTERNATIONAL COURSE ON METEOROLOGICAL TELECOMMUNICATION AND METCAP SOFTWARE, TURKEY-ALANYA, SEPTEMBER 2010

TSMS – MIGRATION TO TDCF CONCLUSION It has been thought that migration process is a dynamic process and all processes should be revised very carefully. Software development and integration usually can take more time than expected. Due to be not tight time schedule for migration, it is not expected to delay complementation of migration. For migrating to TDCF in a correct and rapid way, a perfect knowledge about TDCF is indispensable. For migrating to TDCF in a correct and rapid way, the communication, with WMO and with some members which already have considerable improvement on TDCF, should be improved. 5TH INTERNATIONAL COURSE ON METEOROLOGICAL TELECOMMUNICATION AND METCAP SOFTWARE, TURKEY-ALANYA, SEPTEMBER 2010

THANKS FOR YOUR ATTENTION… QUESTIONS & REMARKS ? Çetin KARAHAN Industrial Engineer M.Sc. Turkish State Meteorological Service Telecommunication Division ckarahan@dmi.gov.tr 5TH INTERNATIONAL COURSE ON METEOROLOGICAL TELECOMMUNICATION AND METCAP SOFTWARE, TURKEY-ALANYA, SEPTEMBER 2010