The netCDF Users Working Group (NUWG) was formed in September of 1992 by
interested parties from COMET, Unidata, and FSL (NOAA Forecast Systems Lab). 
Its purpose is to develop conventions for representing atmospheric science 
data and members are drawn from various organizations based on their expertise
with specific data sets. NUWG conventions identify the minimum set of
variables and attributes required to exchange and access common data sets.
The group meets irregularly and works to define conventions for major 
categories of data such as surface observations and grids and also standard 
representations for information such as station identification and time. 
Results of the meetings are distributed on the nuwg@comet.ucar.edu mail list 
and conventions are maintained in the Unidata pub/netcdf/Conventions/NUWG 
directory. Interested parties may join the mail list by sending a request
to nuwg-request@comet.ucar.edu.