Computer room renovation in the WWB requires that the GOES Ingest and NOAAPORT Interface (GINI) System be moved. The GINI will be turned off for two to four hours on April 13th beginning at 0400 Universal Time. This time period takes advantage of the GOES-8 eclipse period and thus minimizes the loss of GOES-8 data. However, GOES 10 data will be lost during the period on NOAAPORT. (Satellite data delivery on other systems will be unaffected).
Satellite communications equipment summarily moved out of its home by the asbestos abatement forces sympathetic to President Milosivic will be returned by NATO allied forces to its original location on April 15th starting at 1830 Universal Time. As part of the negotiated settlement, the satellite broadcast network will be down for approximately three hours during the repatriation. GOES 8/10 Sounder, Imager and Wind products will not be accessible by the outside world for this brief period. During this network outage, you will also not be able to access internet home pages that originate from the Satellite Services Division.
A GOES-8 East-West station keeping maneuver has been scheduled for Tuesday April 20, 1999, at 1759 Universal Time (UTC). (A back up for this date is April 22, 1999). During the station maneuver, no GOES 8 imagery or soundings will be available from 1745 UTC through 1914 UTC. The planned satellite availability schedule surrounding the maneuver is as follows:
| 1145 UTC- 1644 UTC: | GOES -8 routine imaging and soundings except 1145 UTC full disk image abbreviated to a 19 minute scan. |
| 1645 UTC- 1714 UTC: | GOES-8 full disk scanning |
| 1715 UTC- 1744 UTC | GOES-8 routine imaging and soundings |
| 1730 UTC- 1929 UTC | GOES-10 full disk imaging |
| 1915 UTC- 0144 UTC | Abbreviated GOES-8 full disk (19 minute) scan |
| 0145 UTC | GOES-8 routine imager and sounding schedules resume. |
Also expect to see grid offsets on GOES images and soundings for upto 6 hours following the conclusion of the maneuver.
After glitches involved with the move of the NWSTC to its new facility, the new home page http://www.nwstc.noaa.gov/ is accessible to all and contains course schedules, descriptions and other helpful information.
| LNS | Lancaster, Pennsylvania |
| MWT | Mount Ida, Arkansas |
| PTW | Pottstown, Pennsylvania |
| SRQ | Sarasota, Florida |
| YIP | Detroit/Willow Run, Michigan |
Build 10 software is now installed on most WSR-88D radars in time for severe weather season. There have been some interesting posts to WX-TALK on the new Tornado Detection Algorithm (TDA). If you missed them, I highly recommend a cyber-journey to Greg Stumpf's web page where he has posted an excellent presentation on remote sensing strengths and limitations in detecting storm scale vortices at http://www.nssl.noaa.gov/swat/. Access the last bullet on the SWAT news page.
Time for plants to grow and floods to flow. In the spirit of the season, I have posted two classic technical attachments for your review. Central Region Technical Attachment 95-02 describes a soil water assessment model for crops in the high plains. Western Region Technical Attachment 87-48 gives an excellent qualitative explanation of the "wall of water" phenomena that can occur with a dam burst.
These files are in Adobe® Acrobat® format. The free reader/printer for these files is available from http://www.adobe.com.
FLDWAV is a generalized flood routing model for use by hydrologists for real-time flood forecasting of rainfall/snow melt generated floods and/or dam break floods. The general release version of the NWS FLDWAV model is available over the internet for use with Windows 95 or Windows 98. The self-extracting file (FLDWAV1-0-0.exe) contains the FLDWAV executable, documentation and 10 example files as well as the graphical output utility (FLDGRF.exe). You can access downloading instructions and the executable files at http://hsp.nws.noaa.gov/oh/hrl/rvrmech/release.htm. Hydrologists are also developing an FAQ page on the FLDWAV model. For more information point to: http://hsp.nws.noaa.gov/oh/hrl/rvrmech/river.htm.
Several technical attachments (TA's) in the Scientific Services Division section of the March Eastern Region (ER) Staff Notes are worth noting. (Go to http://www.nws.noaa.gov/er/hq/StaffNotes/staff031299.htm#Scientific Services Division). ER TA 99-2 describes a light snow event generated below the 850 millibar level. TA 99-3 offers case studies to assist in improving convective forecasts in weakly forced environments. You will also findi information on a planned September 1999 workshop on Coastal Storms, Terrain and Lake Effects, Heavy Precipitation Forecasting, and Mesoscale Modeling. Keynote speaker is Louis Uccellini, director of the National Centers for Environmental Prediction.
Questions apparently still linger on eta versus the meso eta, including run times. A desrption of the eta changes including the addition of two runs at 06z and 18z are documented in TPB 447 available at: http://www.nws.noaa.gov/om/tpb/447body.htm.
Two National Weather Service information technology systems were recognized as laureates in the Computerworld Smithsonian Awards program April 12 at the Smithsonian Castle in Washington, D.C.
The NWS's Advanced Weather Interactive Processing System (AWIPS), and the El Niño forecasting system used by the NWS National Centers for Environmental Prediction were recognized along with other award program nominees.
The Computerworld Smithsonian Award program honors the use of information technology to create positive social and economic change.
Mary Glackin, Director of the AWIPS Program Office, and Ming Ji, a physical scientist with the Climate Prediction Center, accepted the laureate medals on behalf of NWS employees and the systems during a ceremony at the Smithsonian Institution Castle in Washington, D.C.
AWIPS is providing significant improvements in weather- and flood-related services to protect life and property. The system gives NWS forecasters access to satellite imagery, Doppler radar data, automated weather observations and computer-generated numerical forecasts, all in one workstation.
Supercomputers, data storage devices and telecommunications systems were at the heart of the NWS's El Niño forecasting efforts. NOAA scientists used highly sophisticated numerical models that turn data from global observing systems such as ships, buoys and satellites to prepare climate forecasts for the coming seasons. The numerical models, improved forecast techniques and understanding of the ocean-atmosphere interaction, allowed the NWS to issue forecasts six months in advance for the record-breaking rains in California and the southeast.
Case studies of the climate forecasting system and of AWIPS are now part of the permanent research collection on information technology at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History. Both systems are in contention for further honors in the Computerworld Smithsonian Awards Program, which will be announced in June.
On April 12, Ms. Penny Dalton will begin her appointment as the new Assistant Administrator for Fisheries replacing Rolland A. Schmitten, who has been reassigned as NOAA's Deputy Assistant Secretary for International Affairs. Ms. Dalton comes to NOAA from from the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation where she served as a senior staff person.
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