BUFR was created in 1988 with the goal of replacing the WMO's dozens of character-based, position-driven meteorological codes, such as SYNOP (surface observations), TEMP (upper air soundings) and CLIMAT (monthly climatological data).
In the WMO terminology, BUFR belongs to the category of table-driven code forms, where the meaning of data elements is determined by referring to a set of tables that are kept and maintained separately from the message itself.
Templates can be designed to meet the requirements of a specific data product (weather observations, for instance).
The WMO has released a number of BUFR templates for surface and upper air observational data.
The data structure established in the Section 3 template may be re-used multiple times within a single BUFR message.