Iowa Environmental Mesonet

Iowa State University Department of Agronomy

Archived Model Output Statistics (MOS)

The National Weather Service operates a number of operational weather prediction models. These models produce a gridded forecast that is then processed thru a series of equations (Model Output Statistics) to produce a site specific forecast. You can find out more about MOS on the NWS's website. The IEM is building an interactive MOS archive to support local research and makes it available for others to use as well.

Archive Status: NAM and GFS MOS back to 3 May 2007. The archive updates in real-time as products are received from the NWS.

Current Tools:

  • Interactive MOS Tables
    Generates a simple table of how a variable changes over time and by model run.
  • Comma Delimited output
    Simple web service provides csv data for a site and for a period of ten days forecast. An example URL call would be:
    csv.php?station=KAMW&ts=2009-01-10%2012:00                  (all data 10 days)
    csv.php?station=KAMW&runtime=2009-01-10%2012:00&model=GFS  (explicit)
    

Note: MOS variables are stored as their raw encodings in the text product, except wdr (wind direction) which is multiplied by 10 for its true value.

We will probably back fill the archive based on how much interest this application generates, so please let us know if you find this page useful.