UK Met Office GRIB data

[franksingleton]

In a letter published in the January edition of Weather. the “popular level” R Met Soc journal, I have suggested that the Met Office should follow the USA, Canada, Germany and France by making GRIB data openly available for use by third parties such as XyGrib, Windy.com, Ventusky.com, etc.
As that might be a step too far or not easily achievable, I have suggested that they follow the example of Jersey Met and put their 4km model output online. Jersey do this at at Wind and wave map.
Anyone who feels strongly about this might like to write to the Met Office and make similar suggestions. The CA has made similar requests but has had no really helpful response so far. The Met Office is a world leader so that it is galling not to be able to access their output in the same way that we can from other countries.

 

[Sandy]

@franksingleton is their any particular department we should be writing to?

 

[franksingleton]

There is only the general enquiry address. It is difficult to get past that. Because I signed up to their data service, I got invited to a video discussion with a member of staff and a consultant. I asked specifically that they should look at some GRIB services. in the event, they looked at none. My letter to Weather is an attempt to get more attention. I would hope that suggesting that they follow other countries might shame them. Probably a forlorn hope.
In a reply to my letter, the Met Office talked about their data hub. This is fine for a researcher wanting some data. It is not suitable for us sailors. It is clumsy and too expensive for a service such as Ventusky or XyGrib. I doubt very much that they will make large data volumes available free. I would be quite happy if they could follow Jersey Met for the whole of U.K. waters, but 6 hourly, not 12 and a little earlier. I also suggested that an overlay of wind on their app might be useful, or as an alternative to rain.
I know you did not ask for all that but hope that it might help others and lead to more requests. There was a slight hint in the Met Office reply.

 

[Stemar]

IIRC, the Met Office is expected to make a profit from their data, just like the Admiralty with their charts. If they're being leaned to increase the profits from On High, there's little danger they'll make anything more than the bare minimum available for free.

 

[franksingleton]

IIRC, the Met Office is expected to make a profit from their data, just like the Admiralty with their charts. If they're being leaned to increase the profits from On High, there's little danger they'll make anything more than the bare minimum available for free.

You are quite correct. However, there is a Public Westher Service,

 

[franksingleton]

Sorry, I hit the wrong key.
I meant to go on and refer to Public Weather Service Customer Group. This is vote funded and it is a matter for the Met Office to make a case for the funds to cover this. In my letter to Weather, I quoted safety as a good reason to have the best available forecast data freely available. In the past, the HMT dictum was that “services that benefit the general public should be free at the point of delivery but sectional interests should not benefit at the taxpayer’s expense.” Mariners were seen as a sectional interest. I would argue that there is sufficient general public benefit in making such data freely available for it to be covered under the PWC. Germany and France seem to be able to do that, so why not the UK? There might be some political battle to be fought but there also needs to be the will to make the case.

 

[Motor_Sailor]

There might be some political battle to be fought but there also needs to be the will to make the case.

This is the nub of the issue. What other countries see as a public service, our leaders see as an asset that can be used to generate income. Strange that the provision of meals to MPs in the Houses of Parliament isn't subject to the same metric - they're provided to a very restricted 'sectional interest' with a hefty tax payer subsidy.

I will write to the Met Office and encourage others to do so - there's no hope of anything changing without making a clamour.

 

[franksingleton]

This is the nub of the issue. What other countries see as a public service, our leaders see as an asset that can be used to generate income. Strange that the provision of meals to MPs in the Houses of Parliament isn't subject to the same metric - they're provided to a very restricted 'sectional interest' with a hefty tax payer subsidy.

I will write to the Met Office and encourage others to do so - there's no hope of anything changing without making a clamour.

Thank you. That could be useful if enough people do likewise. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

 

[Laser310]

The UK Met Unified Model - Global Deterministic 10km model described here

Numerical weather prediction models

is available for download as a grib within Expedition. While Expedition costs money, that model is free.

One can download expedition, use it in "Demo" mode without buying a license, and get that grib. It can be viewed in Expedition - which is an excellent grib viewer - or opened in another program.

 

[franksingleton]

The UK Met Unified Model - Global Deterministic 10km model described here

Numerical weather prediction models

is available for download as a grib within Expedition. While Expedition costs money, that model is free.

One can download expedition, use it in "Demo" mode without buying a license, and get that grib. It can be viewed in Expedition - which is an excellent grib viewer - or opened in another program.

Have you done that? I have not found a demo Expedition But I am not the best searcher online. Is it the full UK UM? Or is it the limited version that PredictWind say that they provide?

 

[Laser310]

Have you done that? I have not found a demo Expedition But I am not the best searcher online. Is it the full UK UM? Or is it the limited version that PredictWind say that they provide?

I have a licensed version of expedition.

there isn't a demo version anymore.., i should have been more clear. Download the full version, and run it without a license - you will be in demo mode, and you can use it this way forever.

I am 99% sure that all the grib download/viewing functions work in demo mode.

mostly what doesn't work in demo mode is instrument connectivity - all networking is disabled, and also the optimal routing is disabled.

as far as the UK Met...

For expedition download it comes from the expedition server. there is no charge for this, but i think you need to make a (free) account on the expedition website and enter the password in expedition.

For UK Met, Nick only has 10m wind, mslp, and rain available for download - i don't know if that is because that is all he can get, or because he wants to save space on his server.., or something else. I will ask him.

for other free WX resources - Saildocs, for example, no password is required. For the various subscription services - Great Circle, PW, etc., you can enter you user name ans password in expedition and get them. The PW is a bit limited in Expedition, so i get it with their win 10 offshore app.

edit - i see i wasn't clear above. you do not need an account or password to download or run expedition in demo mode. you do need the expedition account and password to get the free gribs off of his server. He has several models there, including the UK Met, He is also running WRF for some popular racing locales, and these are on his server and need the free account.

 

[Laser310]

I have found that for some reason the Expedition UK Met Gribs do not open in other programs.

This is odd as all the other gribs one downloads within expedition can be viewed in any other grib viewer.

I have asked Nick about this.

 

[Laser310]

I have found that for some reason the Expedition UK Met Gribs do not open in other programs.

This is odd as all the other gribs one downloads within expedition can be viewed in any other grib viewer.

I have asked Nick about this.

so the answer is that the license agreement with UK Met requires that expedition provide the gribs in encrypted format so that they can only be viewed within expedition.

for a while the same thing was going on with ECMWF, aka the euro. PW could sell you the grib, but you could only view them in the PW apps. This was mandated by the European center. They have since gone back to permitting the ECMWF gribs downloaded from PW to be opened in other programs - Like expedition.

 

[franksingleton]

In other words, UK UM is only available to third parties, eg XyGrib, Windy.com, Ventusky.com, PocketGrib etc at a cost. DWD, Meteo France, Canada, USA do not charge these third parties who pass on the data free of charge. The Met Office is stuck with HMT strictures. ECMWF is controlled by its member countries. Noting that there is little consistent difference between global models, it is not a great hardship, just annoying that the leading operational forecast, updated 6-hourly is not available like the other major players.
What would be really good to have is the UK 4km model on a browser as provided by Jersey. Several other countries issue finer scale models, usually HARMONIE or another derivative of HIRLAM, Ireland and Spain come to mind. There is always, ICON-EU but the UK UM has a shorter grid and its western boundary is further away from the British Isles and European waters. It must be better.

 

[lustyd]

This is the nub of the issue. What other countries see as a public service, our leaders see as an asset that can be used to generate income. Strange that the provision of meals to MPs in the Houses of Parliament isn't subject to the same metric - they're provided to a very restricted 'sectional interest' with a hefty tax payer subsidy.

Don't necessarily place all the blame on parliament. We very nearly got a law requiring public data to be made available. Of course there's nothing stopping them from implementing a matching law in the UK, and I'm sure they'll get to it after the cheese and wine.

Legislation on Open data

 

[franksingleton]

Don't necessarily place all the blame on parliament. We very nearly got a law requiring public data to be made available. Of course there's nothing stopping them from implementing a matching law in the UK, and I'm sure they'll get to it after the cheese and wine.

Legislation on Open data

As a response to the directive, ECMWF now has ECMWF Forecasts.
many of the products have little value Gus but some are. It is a precedent that the Met Office could follow.

 

[franksingleton]

As part of their response to my letter, the Met Office said that they would incorporate my input , alongside that from others, as they continue to look at the accessibility of their weather data and develop their public website and app in the coming years.. No sign of any urgency.

They referred to their newly developed Met Office Weather DataHub which allows access to “detailed and customisable weather data and users can download up to 1GB of free data per month.”

That sounds great, until you take a look. You then go to Windy or Ventusky or just about any other GRIB app???