Weather Station Identifiers
Information and resources

©2000, 2006 Tim Vasquez

Links updated 6/15/07


Identifiers are an important building block in meteorology because they provide a scheme which identifies the various weather stations in use. To accurately use weather data, meteorologists and climatologists have a vested interest in the identifiers used by weather stations. Unfortunately the system is not as simple as it should be. Not only are newer identifiers are constantly coming online, being modified, or made obsolete, but identifiers are sometimes brought into use without coordination between agencies. This resource is intended to help meteorologists maintain accurate station listings.

Types of identifiers
  • WMO Identifiers - The World Meteorological Organization relies on a 5-digit numeric code to identify a weather station. It is widely used in synoptic and upper air reports. The entire identifier is often called the "index number". The first two digits are sometimes referred to as the "block number" and refer to the geographic area (00-29 Europe, 30-59 Asia, 60-69 Africa, 70-79 North America, 80-89 South America, 90-99 Oceania). The last three digits are loosely referred to as the "station number" in the context of "block numbers".
  • ICAO Identifier - The ICAO identifier consists of 4-letter identifiers approved for use under the International Civil Aviation Administration plan of identifiers.
  • WBAN - The WBAN (Weather Bureau Army Navy) identifier is a 5-digit identifier developed in the 1950s to augment the system of longline identifiers. It is still used by NCDC to identify many of its climatological datasets and thus continues to be important.
  • FAA Identifier - The FAA identifier is a three-digit (sometimes 4-digit alphanumeric) designator that was used throughout North America for weather reporting purposes up until 1996. In many cases, a three-digit identifier can be "converted" to its ICAO form by adding the appropriate ICAO region letter as the first letter. However this is NOT a reliable rule, especially in Alaska and Hawaii... while ANC may translate correctly to PANC, there are many stations where this is not the case, such as BRW, which is PABR under the ICAO form. This is sometimes a source of errors in crossreference tables.
  • Example - Dallas Fort Worth International Airport in Texas = WMO index number 72259 = ICAO identifier KDFW = WBAN number 03927 = FAA identifier DFW.

    Special problems
  • Identifier moves - The government sometimes creates messy problems by "moving" an identifier to a different locations. This has happened with the move of DEN from Stapleton Airport to the International Airport in 1996; and AUS from Austin Mueller Airport to Bergstrom Airport in 1999. It creates ambiguity in the location that the identifier represents and may create inaccuracies with historical datasets.
  • Oil platforms - Within NOAA and the FAA, there tends to be poor documentation of identifiers used on offshore oil platforms.
  • KQ identifiers - The KQ-- ICAO identifier block is reserved by the U.S. Department of Defense for special use. Some of the identifiers have been assigned for routine use and their information is known (such as KQCU for Fort Chaffee and KQWS for Fort Drum; many are listed in this source). Other identifiers are used for (1) classified operating locations and (2) for deployed combat weather teams. Their association with a geographic location is usually classified or marked for official use only.

    Cardinal resources
    These references may be considered authoritative, and will override any of the secondary resources below if a conflict exists.
  • WMO Pub 9 A. This is the sole, authoritative source of synoptic identifier numbers. Thankfully the WMO does a great job of putting its publications online, and this up-to-date resource can be consulted for all the synoptic identifiers that might be encountered. A flatfile (HUGE) may be obtained here (pick the latest Pub9volA).
  • Location Indicators, ICAO Publication 7910 (ordering info only) is the sole authoritative source for worldwide ICAO identifiers. Unfortunately the ICAO does a poor job diffusing this information online and charges phenomenal costs for the information. This source from EUROCONTROL is probably an interface into the same dataset.
  • Location Identifiers, FAA Publication FAAO 7350 is the sole, authoritative source for ICAO identifiers in the United States, where it overrides ICAO Pub 7910. It includes non-authoritative information about Canadian ICAO identifiers. Although 7350.7 is fully online, position information is not available in either the online or printed version.
  • Canadian METSTAT Tables are the sole authoritative source of all Canadian identifiers.
  • Australian Bureau of Meteorology Station List Files is the sole authoritative source of Australia's station identifier information online. Data files are organized in both alphabetical and station number order, for the whole of Australia, and by individual states. (Thanks to Peter Creswick)

    Secondary resources: Government/Institutional
  • NCDC Station Locator is a good source of U.S. station information, but it seems to be running about 2 years behind on updates as it misses a lot of the ASOS stations; I have also noticed a few errors here and there. The raw station inventories can be found here (raw directory listing), along with a massive station history flatfile called MASTER-STN-HIST.TXT (32 MB).
  • NOAA's Platform Name list is helpful for making sense of offshore identifiers.
  • NCDC Multinetwork Metadata List is another decent government source that includes WBAN numbers. It seems to lack a lot of the newer ASOS stations and may have originated from the same database as NCDC Station Locator.
  • NWS/TG Table contains thorough listings but from unknown sources and for an unknown purpose. (Also see table with K--- identifiers sorted by identifier).
  • NWS Meteorological Station Information Lookup is the National Weather Service's "public" station database. While the interface is promising, its data is outdated and it does not contain many of the newer ASOS sites.
  • Greg Thompson (NCAR/RAP) Station Table is very good and updated often! It is a must-see. An older version is mirrored at the FAA ADDS Weather site.
  • FAA Automated Observing Site Map listed FAA-sponsored ASOS sites that are online. (FAA took this down, so am using the archive.org backup)
  • NWS Data Review Group processes and archives Requests for Change to its various datastreams (NWSTG, NOAAPORT, FOS, NWWS, AWIPS, AFOS). Identifier changes can sometimes be found in these documents.
  • NWS Systems Operations Center Change Notices are another source for finding new identifiers by combing through datastream changes to the NWSTG system.
  • METEO France is another exhaustive database of stations (no position info).
  • NAV CANADA's TAF Interface is about the only "official" source of Canada's METAR identifier information online. This is a crude way of obtaining a few of some of the more obscure ones.
  • Environment Canada's Synoptic Station List shows synoptic identifiers within Canada, in WMO Pub 9 A format. This appears to have been taken down... also Environment Canada blocked the Archive.org robots.
  • METAR Maintenance, a short page by Joe Wakefield, describes what is involved in updating AWIPS with new stations.
  • British Atmospheric Data Centre Historical International Station Catalogue - This I have found useful for researching identifier changes, especially outside the U.S. It can be used in conjunction with a similar NCDC product.

    Secondary resources: General public
    Resources maintained by the general public are sometimes good but the quality tends to vary significantly. Many sources are simply carbon copies of resources provided above. In many cases their value tends to be in convenience and accessibility.
  • Our own master station list for United States sites. We developed this inhouse based on audits of METAR data and it is exceedingly thorough for United States. It also contains coverage for Canada and Mexico.
  • Philip Gladstone's CWOP lookup site is pretty thorough and has many different weather databases crossreferenced.
  • AIRNAV is a high-traffic aviation website that is useful for finding exact information about any airfield. It has been of use for finding new airfields with obscure ICAO / FAA identifiers.

    Software
    Here is a listing of related software programs.
  • METAR Audit is a small utility developed by us. It will look at a DIGATMOS.STN station listing and a file with METAR observations and find any METAR reports that do not appear in the station listing. This is a good way to detect new reporting stations. METAR Audit is a 140K download and requires PKUNZIP or WinZip -- note that this is only for experienced users and we will not provide any technical or installation support. However we would be happy to hear about any new entries you have made to your DIGATMOS.STN file.

    If you have any questions, comments, or new information to add, please send an email .



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