Introduction

This is a package to make the transition to bufr reports from alphanumeric text easiest as possible.

A lot of software is coded assuming that the primary source of meteorological reports is in alphanumeric format. Decode libraries are expecting this. But time is changing, meteorological services are migrating to bufr and other binary formats. Most decode sofware have to be changed.

This is a software to get meteorological reports in old alphanumeric format from bufr files. At the moment includes the following reports:

FM 12-XIV SYNOP
FM 13-XIV SHIP
FM 14-XIV SYNOP MOBIL
FM 18-XII BUOY
FM 35-XI TEMP
FM 36-XI TEMP SHIP
FM 38-XI TEMP MOBIL
FM 71-XII CLIMAT

The software is based in bufrdc library from ECMWF. Before version 0.7 this package should to be installed. Since version 0.7, a library for decode a wide subset of bufr reports has been writen from scratch. This is a fast and light bufr decoder. Anyway it still uses the bufr tables installed by ECMWF packages so it still need to be installed. You can grab ECMWF library from

https://software.ecmwf.int/wiki/display/BUFR/Releases

Note that the results from this library is not intended to match at %100 level to original alphanumeric reports. It cannot. Some variables in alphanumeric code rules can be coded in several ways, and there is not a regional even national decision about them. As example, the 'hshs' item (table code 1617) for synop FM 12 can be coded using 00-80 range or 90-99 one. A numeric value for heigh of base clouds can be coded in two ways. And there some few more examples.

Install

Remember you have to download and install bufrdc library from ECMWF

https://software.ecmwf.int/wiki/display/BUFR/Releases

You also will need a Fortran and C compilers in your system and the usual development packages. GNU gcc and gfortran compilers are ok.

Then, to install bufr2synop, download the tarball and uncompress it

tar -xvzf bufr2synop-X.Y.tar.gz

Where X.Y is the current version. This will create the directory bufr2synop-X.Y

You then have to configure

cd bufr2synop-X.Y

./configure

after a succesfully configuration you then can then compile the package

make

and finally install it.

make install

by default, it will install binaries and libraries under /usr/local tree, so you will need root privileges.