World Meteorological Organization
Working together in weather, climate and water
WMO
MCH
Meteorology, Climatology
and Hydrology Data base
Management System
WMO, Climate and Water department: Nirina Ravalitera
www.wmo.int
What is MCH?
Data Base Management System (DBMS)
MCH stands for Meteorological, Climatological and Hydrological
data base management system (DBMS).
What is a DBMS?
“A Data Base Management System (DBMS) is a computer
program (or more typically, a suite of them) designed to manage a
database, a large set of structured data, and run operations on the
data requested by numerous users.” (source :From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)
For whom?
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Small NMHSs that don’t have any DBMS or outdated
solutions to digitize, store and process large amount of
data.
NMHSs looking for a simple, customizable and license
free solution to store, analyze and generate reports
and maps on large amount of data.
What does MCH do ?
Define your stations
What does MCH do ?
Define your own variables
What does MCH do ?
Capture data
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Manually, using tables
and data validation rules
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Through “import” function
What does MCH do ?
Display data in various formats
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Graphs, tables, maps
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Draw isolines on maps
What does MCH do ?
Export your data
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Available formats: CSV, txt and MCH
What does MCH do ?
Perform primary processing
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On variables and stations
What does MCH do ?
Process Synop messages
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Encode and decode Synop messages in CREX and FM12
format
System requirements for MCH
Work station (stand-alone)
WMO
Stand-alone configuration (typically for small NMSs)
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Processor speed of 1.5 GHz or faster
A video resolution of at least 1024 x 768
1 GB of RAM (minimum 500 MB)
Operating system Windows 2000, Windows XP or later
Disk space 5 GB
Costs: ~ 400 $ (Netbook) – 900 $ (Notebook)
System requirements for MCH
Network configuration (client-server)
WMO
Network configuration, typical configuration for NMHSs with regional offices
• Two servers are recommended, 1 operational and 1 mirror.
• Processor speed of 2 GHz or faster,
• A video resolution of at least 1024 x 768, 2 GB of RAM
• A 250 GB hard disk
• 100 GB of free space for the database
• Operating system Windows 2000 professional, Windows XP, Windows 2000
server or Windows 2003 server or later.
• A network connection
• Computers on the client side
Costs: Two servers: 3000 $
Client computer: 900 $ / computer
Licence for operating systems: 1000-3000$ (server)
Client access licences: 5 pack ~200$/ 20 pack ~800$;
Installation
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MCH is provided with a complete installation and user manual
All additional softwares (MySQL, Apache…) are available in
the package and free of charge
Presence of an informatics expert is recommended (to solve
issues related to administrator rights, network connection…)
during the installation
Installation time: 2 - 5 hours
Training requirements
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Basic user : 1-3 days
 Enter data, generate simple reports
Technical user: 3-5 days
 Upload, revise historical and recent data
 Generate sophisticated reports (maps and graphs)
Advanced user: 5-7 days
 Definition of stations, group of stations
 Definition of variables
 Definition of validation criteria
 Definition of maps
 Advanced data processing
Where has it been installed
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Mexico (National Water Commission)
Uruguay
CIIFEN - Centro Internacional para la
Investigación del Fenómeno de El Niño
(Ecuador)
Paraguay
Honduras
Costa Rica
Ghana (Pilot country for the English version)
Disadvantage
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Configurable system
Few developers
User Community
Advantages
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OPEN SOURCE based
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No fees for the licenses
Full access to the source code
A configurable system (you define your variables
and stations etc.), and allows you to connect external
modules
Manages Hydrological, Climatological and
Meteorological data under a unique platform
Multilingual, using an external text file, currently
available in Spanish and English, French version
under development
How and where can you get
MCH?
 An official request signed by the
Permanent Representative of your
country with WMO
Updates
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MCH based on Free Pascal : July 2013
MCH for Linux : 80 % achieved
Thanks !
Merci !
Gracias !