A technical change was implemented at ECMWF in the operational production on Tuesday 11 November 2014, in order to process and allow active assimilation of the following BUFR observations: SYNOP, SHIP, TEMP, TEMP SHIP, PILOT LAND, PILOT SHIP and AMDAR. The BUFR E-AMDAR reports were switched on immediately along with small (European) proportions of the BUFR SYNOP and TEMP (including ASAP) reports.  Since then we have been gradually increasing the proportion of BUFR data used.  On 6 June 2016 ECMWF started processing BUFR BUOY data operationally.

The migration from TAC to BUFR is progressing and we are in a phase when new BUFR data are released progressively, transmission of TAC data is discontinued and many of the changes are not adequately or timely advertised. We the aim to provide a daily picture from a NWP point of view we have reviewed the maps made available since few years including a representation of the most common problems preventing the assimilation of some of the BUFR data:  Monitoring Maps

Progress report on migration to BUFR, ECMWF, March 2015

Progress towards high-resolution, real-time radiosonde reports (BAMS, 2016)