TurboWin was developed at KNMI (Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute) with contributions from several National Meteorological Services and endorsed by the WMO (World Meteorological Organization) and E-SURFMAR (European Surface Marine Programme).
Meteorological observations made on board ships and fixed sea stations are a substantial component of the World Weather Watch provided that the observation are accurate and of high quality. The fixed sea stations and VOS (Voluntary Observing Ships) are key components of the GOS (Global Observing System) and climate research. At the same time, however, it has been recognised that these observations are subject to keying errors, coding errors, calculating errors, etc.. To achieve an optimal control of the quality of the observations, before they are used in real time, the quality control has to be carried out at the root, by the observers themselves. TurboWin contains observation checking routines which are applied on the observations before they are transmitted.
TurboWin is a user-friendly system with over 200 built-in quality checks. It allows the automated compilation of observations on board ships and fixed sea stations, their downloading to disk and their subsequent transmission ashore and thence to a Meteorological Centre, by using Inmarsat, E-mail or other specific communication facilities. The program assists the observer with many menus, pictures, photos, forms, help pages, output options, automated calculations etc..
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