As those of you who were at the Family of Services (FOS) meeting in Phoenix last month may recall, Howard Diamond, NWS Y2K focal point, promised to begin pointing you to simulated Y2K data as it became available from NCEP to aid in your Y2K testing efforts. This is only part of the overall NWS Y2K end-to-end testing effort. As we develop the specific plans for transmitting test Y2K data across our various systems, I will keep you up-to-date on that progress. For example three additional simulated observational data sets will become available in the very near future - PROFILER data in BUFR; ACARS data in BUFR; and hydrological data in SHEF.
A number of sample Y2K files (as well as the script used to manually change the year information in these files) have been placed on the NCEP public ftp server for you to retrieve. PLEASE NOTE THAT FTP SHOULD BE DONE USING BINARY TRANSFER MODE. To do this, FTP to 140.90.50.22 and login as anonymous (you'll be prompted for your email address as a password).. Then type in "cd pub/incoming/Y2K_files", to change to the directory from where you can download the following files:
980101.nxrdwnd - daily file of NEXRAD RCM messages as originally transmitted on 1/1/98
000101.nxrdwnd - daily file of NEXRAD RCM messages created by running "rchange.sh" to change the dates in (a copy of) "980101.nxrdwnd" to look like data from 1/1/00
971231.marine - daily file of marine surface data as originally transmitted on 12/31/97
991231.marine - daily file of marine surface data created by running "rchange.sh" to change the dates in (a copy of) "971231.marine" to look like data from 12/31/99
971231.nxrdwnd - daily file of NEXRAD RCM messages as originally transmitted on 12/31/97
991231.nxrdwnd - daily file of NEXRAD RCM messages created by running "rchange.sh" to change the dates in (a copy of) "971231.nxrdwnd" to look like data from 12/31/99
980101.marine - daily file of marine surface data as originally transmitted on 1/1/98
000101.marine - daily file of marine surface data created by running "rchange.sh" to change the dates in (a copy of) "980101.marine" to look like data from 1/1/00
971231.satwnd - daily file of foreign SATOB messages as originally transmitted on 12/31/97
991231.satwnd - daily file of foreign SATOB messages created by running "rchange.sh" to change the dates in (a copy of) "971231.satwnd" to look like data from 12/31/99
980101.satwnd - daily file of foreign SATOB messages as originally transmitted on 1/1/98
000101.satwnd - daily file of foreign SATOB messages created by running "rchange.sh" to change the dates in (a copy of) "980101.satwnd" to look like data from 1/1/00
rchange.sh - the script that was run to do the above changes (as well as for all other NCEP Y2K datasets). In the script, you set the filename of the file that you want to change (note that the script writes its output back to the same file, so you want to work with a *copy* of the original file!), the string of characters to be changed globally throughout the file (oldstring), and the string to be changed to (newstring). Note that the above marine file is one that had to do have two runs of the script done for it, as there was some data from the 30th in that original file as well (this should be clear from the commented parts of the script).
As an update to the information Howard provided at the FOS meeting (see below) there are some additional data types that we work with which contain year information within the body of the data. These were not on that original list. They are: (1) NEXRAD Radar Coded Messages (RCM) (SDXX99, SDUS99, SDUS41-45) [internal NWS distribution only]; (2) SHEF-formatted cooperative data (ABUS21, SXUS41-46, SRUS21-25); (3) BUFR data; and (4) GRIB data.
Again, these are the data types that need to be focused on for processing purposes; the vast majority of NWS data products (e.g., watches, warnings, forecasts, etc.) are not date-centric. As I have stated before, the only date information in the WMO header portion of all NWS data is the two-digit day and four-digit UTC hour (e.g., 051800). The NEXRAD RCM data is used for internal NWS processing only as input to creating AutoROB products; it is provided here for completeness.
J - Last digit of the year
FM 18 BUOY Report of a buoy observation
FM 62 TRACKOB Report of marine surface observation along a ship's track
FM 63 BATHY Report of a bathythermal observation
FM 64 TESAC Temperature, salinity and current report from a sea station
FM 65 WAVEOB Report of spectral wave information
FM 88 SATOB Report of satellite observations of wind, surface temperature, cloud, humidity, and radiation
JJ - Last two digits of the year
FM 47 GRID Processed data as grid-point values
FM 49 GRAF Processed data as grid-point values (abbreviated code)
JJJ - Last three digits of the year
FM 22 RADREP Radiological data report
FM 39 ROCOB Report from land rocketsonde station
FM 40 ROCOB SHIP Report from a rocketsonde launched from a ship
FM 57 RADOF Radiological trajectory dose forecast
FM 71 CLIMAT Report of monthly values from a land station
FM 72 CLIMAT SHIP Report of monthly values from an ocean weather station
NACLI|
CLINP|
FM 73 SPCLI| Report of monthly means for an oceanic area
CLISA|
INCLI|
FM 75 CLIMAT TEMP Report of monthly aerological means from land station
FM 76 CLIMAT TEMP SHIP Report of monthly means from an ocean station
Howard Diamond
National Weather Service
howard.diamond@noaa.gov