Motivation
The Sixth WMO International Workshop on Tropical Cyclones recommended that all tropical cyclone-related Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) products, including full set of ensemble forecasts, be made available to all operational and research users in real-time. Meanwhile, the THORPEX Interactive Grand Global Ensemble (TIGGE) project is developing plans for the Global Interactive Forecast System (GIFS) for the real time dissemination of ensemble data and products in support of high impact weather prediction. No generally used encoding, however, exists for the exchange of tropical cyclone related data, as the various producing centers use a variety of formats.
To facilitate easy exchange of information, a standard format to represent analyzed and forecast data for tropical and extra-tropical cyclones is proposed. The new format, called Cyclone XML (CXML) is descriptive and human-legible, making it easy for all human users and most automated applications to read. CXML is defined so it can carry data from observations and analyses, manual and NWP forecasts, multiple cyclones and multiple forecasts (ensembles). In its current version, it can include all information conveyed in other existing formats, while its flexibility and extensibility makes it simple to add new kinds of data as needed. CXML is not envisioned as a replacement for the WMO standard BUFR and CREX formats used in operational centers, but as a simple alternative.
The adoption of CXML as a standard format will not only benefit
the tropical cyclone community in general, but also the
THORPEX
community in their effort in establishing GIFS for the improved
prediction of high-impact weather worldwide. CXML is being used
in the North Western Pacific Tropical Cyclone (TC) Ensemble
Forecast project which provides near real time ensemble forecasts
of TCs based on the TIGGE dataset. Ensemble and deterministic
tropical cyclone forecasts from NWP models are now available
in CXML format - please see the
THORPEX GIFS-TIGGE Cyclone Exchange page for more information.
Australian CXML Products
CXML products are issued by warning centres in Australian tropical regions. These products are issued at the same time as the Technical Bulletin and are available on the public FTP at the same location as all current forecasts and warnings: ftp://ftp.bom.gov.au/anon/gen/fwo. For more information on the public FTP service, please see Weather Information FTP Service.
The following lists the product identifiers and filenames for the CXML products issued by each tropical region, for each system number:
- QLD:
- IDQ65255.xml (Tropical Cyclone CXML Bulletin for System 1)
- IDQ65256.xml (Tropical Cyclone CXML Bulletin for System 2)
- IDQ65257.xml (Tropical Cyclone CXML Bulletin for System 3)
- WA:
- IDW60350.xml (TC CXML Bulletin for System 1)
- IDW60351.xml (TC CXML Bulletin for System 2)
- IDW60352.xml (TC CXML Bulletin for System 3)
- NT:
- IDD65441.xml (CXML Bulletin for System 1)
- IDD65442.xml (CXML Bulletin for System 2)
Sample CXML files
The following list provides a collection of sample CXML files for demonstration purposes.- Ensemble tropical cyclone track forecast (abbreviated, made-up data) - CXML_example.xml
- TC analysis including satellite, aircraft, radar, and synoptic fixes (modeled after ATCF "fdeck", made-up data) - CXML_fixes_example.xml
- Bare minimum content - CXML_bare_minimum.xml
- File containing examples of all elements and attributes ("The Works", looks a bit excessive) - CXML_the_works.xml
- Ensemble TC track forecast from MOGREPS (courtesy of Piers Buchanan) - MetOffice_CXML_2008041412.xml
File naming convention for TIGGE TC track files - please see the
THORPEX GIFS-TIGGE Cyclone Exchange page for details
Software for working with CXML
Application software specifically for CXML is being developed. If you have written some code that you are willing to share on this page, please send it to us!
- atcf2xml.pl - Perl converter from ATCF format to CXML (Mike Charles, 8 August 2008)
- read_cxml.pro - IDL CXML reader (Beth Ebert, 8 August 2008)
- cxml_fortran.tgz - Fortran95 CXML reader-writer requiring FoX library (Geoff Freeman, 6 April 2009)
- cxmlToText.f90 Updated to Geoff Freeman's cxmlToText program by Joohyung Son at KMA
- cxml_java_demo_1-3.zip - Java CXML reader-writer (Andrew Donaldson, 12 February 2010)
- tc.xsl - Stylesheet for viewing XML data in a table (Hong Wang, 30 July 2010). Click here for more information.
These CXML readers are not comprehensive, but will be useful to get started reading CXML. Users may need to modify the code to meet their particular requirements.
Last modified: 26 July 2021.
Please send feedback and comments on CXML and suggestions for improving this website to "CXML Support": cxml_support@bom.gov.au
