A friendly and periodic reminder of the rules we use for fostering high SNR and quality conversation and interaction at Stormtrack: Forum rules
P.S. - Nothing specific happened to prompt this message! No one is in trouble, there are no flame wars in effect, nor any inappropriate conversation ongoing. This is being posted sitewide as a casual refresher.
Some are newly installed, some have been around for years, but did not have longline communcations for NADIN/WSMCR transmission prior. It up to the owners of these non-Federal AWOS sites to fund the longline communcation costs so we see the METARs on the data feeds.
Decommissioning of AWOS sites is rather uncommon, but does happen when an airport is closed permanently, as one example. New sites are commissioned often, on a irregular basis but I'd say averaging 4-6 a month. Just b/c they are commissioned does not mean their METARs are available through NCEP. That is up to the owner of the AWOS to fund long line communications on NADIN so the METARs are made available. Right now, there are about 500 AWOS sites that I know of that do not have NADIN service in the U.S.
