NWS to terminate FOS service! Is it the end of non-internet wire service?

US NWS has announced it will terminate FOS (Family of Services) on October 2 2015.
http://www.nws.noaa.gov/dm-cgi-bin/chgshow.pl?fn=DM09-15.02.txt

It is quite surprising for me.  The deadline is so soon, but I guess NOAA has coordinated with their subscribers already, as the announcement mentions about funding from FOS customers.

FOS is going to be taken over by the Integrated Dissemination Project (IDP).   I don't know much detail about IDP's services for operational users in the private sector.  But it looks like there is going to be no land-line service other than Internet-based ones, looking at http://www.nws.noaa.gov/nwws/dissemination.html

I really don't know more than that: any information is appreciated.

Atmospheric Motion Vector bullerins in BUFR from Himawari-8

The Japan Meteorological Agency has started operation of its meteorological satellite namely Himawari-8.

http://www.jma.go.jp/jma/jma-eng/satellite/news/himawari89/20150707_himawari-8_operation_initiated.pdf

There were several announcements in different channels.

- WMO/WMIOperational newsletter
  http://www.wmo.int/pages/prog/www/ois/Operational_Information/Newsletters/current_news_en.html
- Bulletin catalogue changes
  ftp://www.wmo.ch/wmo-ddbs/OperationalInfo/VolumeC1/From_WMO/METNO/2015/MC2715.txt

Barbados Meteorological Services starts BUFR reports for CLIMAT/SYNOP/TEMP

Source: US NWS data management
http://www.nws.noaa.gov/dm-cgi-bin/chgshow.pl?fn=DM06-15.06.txt

CBS letter on migrating upper air reports to BUFR

The president of WMO/CBS (Commission for Basic Systems) has circulated a letter to WMO Members, which is available online
http://www.wmo.int/pages/prog/www/WIS/wiswiki/tiki-view_blog_post.php?postId=171

This is a historic event that a formal WMO body statement cares about usable quality of data.  For me it has been clear from the beginning that the worldwide data exchange is meaningful only if the data is usable. But not so many people cared about that historically. 

Draft of revised WMO GDPFS Manual on review; comments by end of July

WMO is working on revising the Manual on GDPFS.  This is whole overhaul from scratch.  Now the Secretariat made the latest draft available online.  It accepts comments from the member states by the end of July.

When the DPFS (Data Processing and Forecasting System) was created, the RSMC (Regional Specialized Meteorological Centre) and WMC (World Meteorological Centre) were both supposed to work on human-plotted weather charts.  Now NWP (Numerical Weather Prediction) has overtaken most of the subjective analysis and forecast, so the centres (RSMC and WMC) are redefined to serve NWP products.

So I'm keen on the fate of present Attachment II-4 for graphical symbols of weather chart, including weather symbols (see my previous post).  It won't be removed, but will be moved to the Manual on Codes.

Monsoon (baiu) has come to Amami Islands

Today JMA announced the monsoon (baiu) has come to Amami islands, southwest side of Japan.

Attached is total precipitable water and wind vector at 700 hPa of 12UTC 18 May 2015 from NCEP analysis, visualized at earth.nullschool.net.  Blue area illustlates most flow from Indian Ocean reaching Japan.

The southwesterly flow of moist air is also visible in our operational chart, AUXT85 of the same time.

Weather symbol for ww=07 (blowing dust/sand or blowing spray) and JMA's surface analysis chart

Effective 06 April 2015, Japan Meteorological Agency uses symbol like $/ℓ for present weather code ww=07 (blowing dust or blowing sand for land stations, or blowing spary for ship) on its Asia-Pacific surface analysis charts stamped ASAS http://www.jma.go.jp/en/g3/.  Before that the symbol $ was used regardless the report is for land or for ship.

The ww symbols table have a story I wrote before:
http://toyoda-eizi.blogspot.jp/2014/11/changes-of-present-weather-symbols-for.html

On 1970 the Fifth session of the Commission for Synoptic Meteorology (FR ¶6.4.2.2) changed the symbol from $ to $/ℓ with a footnote:

When ww is coded 07, the symbol for blowing dust or blowing sand （$） is used if the observation originates from a land station, the symbol for blowing spay （ℓ）　is used if the observation originates from a sea station.

On 1980 the Extraordinary session of the Commission for Basic Systems replaced the table with current one (as attached) in its Recommendation 7.  The footnode above was removed at that time.