Aircraft Based Observations (ABO)
Welcome to the first operational release of the “amdar.noaa.gov” web site. AMDAR, which stands for Aircraft Meteorological Data Reports, is the generally-accepted worldwide term for automated weather reports from commercial aircraft. The “amdar.noaa.gov” web site was a research effort led by William Moninger of NOAA’s Global System Division (GSD).
In the 1980's, GSD, formerly known as the Forecast Systems Laboratory (FSL), realized the potential of ACARS (click here for a glossary of terms) data to improve Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) models, and successfully negotiated the receipt of data from four airlines (Delta, Northwest, UAL, and UPS). These airlines routed their ACARS data to FSL via ARINC as text, and FSL decoded the variety of data formats from the various fleets. In 1993, FSL established an ongoing effort to assess ACARS data quality, flag apparently bad data, and correct data where possible. A graphical display program was developed to facilitate evaluation of its performance and grew into what is known today as the "amdar.noaa.gov" website. The graphical displays allow access to real-time data and data that is up to 30 days old. If you need access to data as old as July 1, 2001, you can use the MADIS Application Interface (API).
This site will house Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) and ESRI based graphical displays of Aircraft Based Observations (ABO). All of the other functionality can be accessed on the amdar-research site which is still hosted at GSD. To apply for restricted ABO data access, check to see if you meet the criteria here and if so, please fill out a MADIS data application request. Note that all ABO data older than two days is available to the public. For more information on MADIS ABO data, please click here. The following image illustrates the MADIS Aircraft Display and user functionality.
Highlights
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) and Glossary
Access to Aircraft Based Displays
Support
Please address any questions to the MADIS Help Desk at madis-support@noaa.gov.
Last updated 25 Feb 2024
