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MADIS Web Services Portal |
The demands for finer scale meteorological services have increasingly required higher resolution observations to initialize and evaluate weather and climate models, applications, and products. In response to these demands, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Research (Oceanic and Atmospheric Research) Earth System Research Laboratory (ESRL) Global Systems Division (GSD) developed the Meteorological Assimilation Data Ingest System (MADIS) to collect, integrate, quality control (QC), and distribute observations from NOAA and non-NOAA organizations. MADIS leverages partnerships with international agencies; federal, state, and local agencies (e.g. state Departments of Transportation); universities; volunteer networks; and the private sector (e.g. airlines, railroads) to integrate observations from their stations with those of NOAA to provide a finer density, higher frequency observational database for use by the greater meteorological community. MADIS observational products and services were first provided to the public in July of 2001.
MADIS runs operationally in NOAA's IDP operated by National Centers
for Environmental Prediction (NCEP). TBD conpleted by NCEP.
MADIS subscribers have access to an integrated, reliable and
easy-to-use database containing the real-time and archived
observational datasets. Also available are real-time
gridded surface analyses that assimilate all of the MADIS
surface datasets (including the highly-dense integrated mesonet data).
The grids are produced by the Rapid Update Cycle (RUC) Surface
Assimilation System (RSAS), which incorporates a
15-km grid stretching from Alaska in the north to Central America in
the south, and also covers significant oceanic areas. The RSAS grids
are valid at the top of each hour, and are updated every 15 minutes.
MADIS also includes an Application Program Interface (API) that
provides users with easy access to the data and quality control (QC)
information. The API allows each user to specify station and
observation types, as well as QC choices, and domain and time
boundaries. Many of the implementation details that arise in data
ingest programs are automatically performed. Users of the MADIS API,
for example, can choose to have their wind data automatically rotated
to a specified grid projection, and/or choose to have mandatory and
significant levels from radiosonde data interleaved, sorted by
descending pressure, and corrected for hydrostatic consistency. For
users who do not want to write their own programs, but would like easy
access to the MADIS data, utility programs for each dataset are
included in the API package. These programs can be used to read
station information, observations, and QC information for a single
time, and dump these to an output text file. The operation of each
program is controlled by a text parameter file that allows the user to
exercise all of the options included in the MADIS system. All of the
functionality of the API is also available on this server, for the
meteorological and hydrological surface datasets, via the Text/XML
Viewer described below.
The MADIS database and API are freely available to interested parties in
the meteorological community.
For information on what datasets are currently available, for information
on other access methods (e.g., ftp and LDM), and for more information on MADIS
in general, please go to the
MADIS home page.
MADIS data made accessible from this portal are organized for the
convenience of users who have a need for data on-demand, as contrasted
with continuous real-time access. In general, users who require a
continuous datafeed will get better performance by accessing the data
via ftp or LDM.
All users should request
an account (Text/XML) by filling in this
application form.
Because some of the datasets are restricted, when you obtain an
account you will be assigned a distribution category. Once your
account has been activated, you can login to this server by clicking
on the login link to your distribution category shown below.
Available Services
The MADIS Meteorological and Hydrological Surface datasets can be viewed
in either text or XML formats.
Text/XML Login Links
Surface Meteorological Dataset
Public Public approved for additional Mesonets Government, Research, Education NOAA Surface Hydrological Dataset
Public Public approved for additional Mesonets Government, Research, Education NOAA
Contacts
Please address any questions to:
madis-support@noaa.gov
Last updated 29 Aug 2014.