United States
Voluntary Observing Ship Program

Welcome to the U.S. Voluntary Observing Ship (VOS) Program web site. Here, you will find general information about the worldwide VOS Programme, contact information for U.S. VOS Program Mangers and Port Meteorological Officers, instructions for making and sending weather observations, web version of the Mariners Weather Log, and links to other projects and efforts related to VOS.

On any given day, volunteer crew members on nearly 1,000 ships around the world observe the weather at their location, encode each observation in a standard format, and send the data over satellite or radio to the many national meteorological services that have responsibility for marine weather forecasts. This data is archived for future use by climatologists and other scientists.

The United States VOS Program services about one quarter of the world's VOS fleet, providing ships' crews with weather observer training, handbooks and forms, observation encoding software, barometer calibration, the Mariners Weather Log, and weather observing tools. Located in the major ports around the country, Port Meteorological Officers are the VOS Program's field representatives and primary points of contact for ships.

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Only YOU know the weather at your position.
Report it at 0000, 0600, 1200, 1800 UTC to NOAA's National Weather Service.

"Fallstreaks over Miami, Florida"
Photo courtesy of David Dellinger, PMO Miami, FL