Marine Automatic Weather Station Network
Parent Body: The Met Office, London Road, Bracknell, Berkshire, RG12 2SZ

Principal Functions
Marine meteorological observing in support of Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) and warnings of severe weather conditions.

General Details
The Met Office has developed a number of early warning systems to help reduce the effects of natural disasters such as flooding due to storms and abnormally high sea levels. One such system is the network of Marine Automatic Weather Stations (MAWS) which are deployed on the edge of the continental shelf in the North Atlantic as shown below (click on the thumbnail to view the figure).

Specification
The MAWS network covers the Western North Atlantic, North Sea and Bay of Biscay and includes 13 Open Ocean Buoys, 3 Inshore Buoys, 4 Islands systems and 4 Light Vessels. Each system measures air pressure, air & sea temperature, humidity, wind speed & direction, and (with the exception of Islands) wave height and period and transmit hourly observations 24 hrs a day 365 days a year. In addition the light vessel AWS measure visibility. The data are transmitted to the Met Office where they are used in routine forecasting, NWP and helping to monitor the development of Atlantic storms.

Over the past couple of years the MAWS network has changed substantially, with the aim of reducing the operational costs of the network, while also improving the quality and range of data acquired. This is being achieved through system upgrades, collaboration, co-operation and, where feasible, the use of other data available from meteorological and oceanographic networks which cover the UK and surrounding waters.

Future Plans
To ensure the future feasibility of the MAWS systems, our project team is looking into a number of new developments in response to the UK Observational Network user requirement, including spectral and directional wave measurements from marine platforms. An experimental open-ocean buoy with two spectral and directional wave sensors was deployed for a one-year trial in St. Brides Bay in south-west Wales on 15 July 1999, in close proximity to a Datawell Waverider Buoy operated by the Countryside Council for Wales. Data from the wave sensor will be compared with the Waverider data and the current operational heave sensor data. The experimental buoy also incorporates various hardware and software modifications with the aim of increasing the functionality and improving the overall reliability of the open-ocean buoy platform, thus reducing operational costs. Future modifications to the operational open-ocean buoy system will depend on the results of this trial. 

Availability
Data from the MAWS network are available from the Met Office. Recent data from buoys around the UK are also available from the NOAA National Data Buoy Centre via http://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/Maps/England.shtml.

Further Information
For further information on the MAWS network see the March 2000 NWP Gazette Article "Recent changes in the Marine Automatic Weather Station network".

Contact Information
Bob Shearman
Head (Observations Logistics and Automation)
The Met Office
Beaufort Park
Easthampstead
Wokingham
Berkshire, RG40 3DN.
Telephone:  01344 855600
Fax:  01344 855897
email: rjshearman@meto.gov.uk