Upgrade and new developments of the automatic weather stations network in Austria

1. Upgrade and new developments of the automatic weather stations network in Austria Ernest Rudel, Martin Mair & Kurt Zimmermann ZAMG (Central Institute of Meteorology and Geodynamics) Vienna, Austria TECO 2005

2. Outline • Meteorological networks • History of AWS network • Present system • New system • Improvement of sensor systems • Outlook TECO 2005

3. Demands on a National Meteorological Network • WMO standards • Adequate spatial distribution • Data in more population dense areas (greater demand for data) • Data from important traffic routes • Areas with minimum and maximum values • Areas with pronounced gradients • Continuity (Long time measurements on the same site) • Same quality check and derived values TECO 2005

4. Purposes of a meteorologicalnetwork • Data for international exchange • Data for severe weather warnings • Atmosphere monitoring over national territory • Data for weather prediction, climatological analysis • Expertise use (courts, assurance companies, regulations, standards, ...) TECO 2005

5. Advantages of AWS • Increasing temporary and area coverage • Providing data from data sparse areas where human observations are not practical • Providing data continuously at frequent intervals and for any observation time • Eliminating the subjectivity in manual observations • Reflecting the requirements of all users of near real time synoptic data • Supporting the trends to reducing model grid scale and the need for more observations to be available in shorter timescales • Make believe to reduce costs TECO 2005

6. History • 1981 First AWS • 1985 Some telephone links • 1991 Network of AWS with leased telephone lines • 1992 ZAMG generates most of the hourly synoptical reports fully automated TECO 2005

7. Future requirements ofAWS network • Increase of the density of AWS • Significant reduction of the overall costs of operation • Shut down of all manually operated classical stations • Increase of the network of AWS up to 200 – 220 stations • Substitution of the present AWS with a new generation of AWS • Improvement of the sensor equipment of AWS TECO 2005

8. Present system of AWS TECO 2005

9. New system of AWS TECO 2005

10. TECO 2005

11. Flow of Data (Sketch) TECO 2005

12. ZAMG Automated Measurement Network Altitudinal distribution of Area, population and AWS_new in Austria 40 35 Area 30 Population AWS-new 25 % 20 15 10 5 0 <250 251-500 501-750 751-1000 1001-1250 1251-1500 1501-1750 1751-2000 2001-2500 2501-3000 >3000 m.a.s.l. TECO 2005

13. Improvement of sensor systems TECO 2005

14. Outlook • The upgrade of the AWS- network ensures a quantitative and a qualitative improvement of the measurement of meteorological parameters. • With the network of ~200 – 220 AWS a station should be representative for approximately 400 km² (20x20km). • The increase of the temporal resolution of the measurement data in real time is required by different users of meteorological data and especially for inputs in local area numerical models. • The standardization of the network would make it possible to optimize the operational aspects by decreasing the costs of operation. TECO 2005