Just a typical newbie question, though Is there somewhere a list where to find all the abbreviations used here? Would make it easy for newbies like me to watch and learn
List the abbreveations you need clarification with. Let me know if I missed any.
SLP = Sea Level Pressure
MSLP = Mean Sea Level Pressure (an average of SLP over given time frame)
Altimeter = Another way of correcting barometric pressure for elevation that does not involve temperature changes (it assumes standard temperature of 59F)
NWS = National Weather Service
ASOS = Automated Surface Observing System - basically the NWS managed weather stations at airports mostly locally funded.
AWOS = Automated Weather Observing System - FAA managed weather stations, and federally funded. similar to ASOS. Most people interchangeably refer to METAR data and it could be ASOS or AWOS....and for the most part it doesn't matter.
CWOP = Citizens Weather Observer Program = a network of weather stations run by weather hobbyist and includes tie in to NWS NOAA MADIS system for data analysis and quality control.
WU = Weather Underground online weather website
PWS = Personal Weather Station - just a generic term for the hardware/software that an individual has for measuring and reporting weather data
METAR = Meteorological Aerodrome Report - a format of weather data reported by mostly local airports. The METAR is usually used as a reference to your local trusted weather data source.
Mesowest - a weather network run by the University of Utah. It brings in weather data from CWOP MADIS reporting stations, NWS stations, and a few other weather networks like RAWS, SNOTEL
MADIS - Meteorological Assimilation Data Ingest System - a system run by NWS NOAA that processes weather data from different sources and runs quality controls on this data. MADIS data is then distributed to be used by numerous systems.
* these definitions are close enough to being correct. Good enough for a newbie without getting too deep.