As many of you aware, the National Center for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) has implemented a bundle of changes to the operational AVN/MRF analysis and forecast suite. The changes include an increase in horizontal and vertical resolution as well as physics, analysis, and assimilation updates. For a concise and cogent analysis of the changes and the realized improvements during a two month period when the new AVN/MRF package was run in parallel with the operational model, consult James Nelson's Western Regional Tech Attachment No. 98-22 available on the web at: http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/wrhq/TA98.html.
The Change Management Section (CMS) of the Office of Systems Operations assigns and maintains all three- and five-character station site identifiers (SID's) for the National Weather Service. This office is also the NWS focal point for the three charactor SID's assigned by the FAA. (i.e., all three character SID requests come through the Change Management Section).
Approximately two to three years ago, CMS identified a list of approximately 200+ ASOS sites that contained numbers in their SID's. With the implementation of the METAR coding format for surface observations which requires all alpha identifiers, CMS launched an effort to change all the SIDs to conform to the METAR requirement. The FAA informed the NWS that they planned to phase in identifiers in batches at approximately two month intervals.
Actually, the FAA operates on a 56 day cycle for these SID changes. However, the CMS receives each batch of SID changes six weeks in advance through an FAA publication called the National Flight Data Digest. While The Digest is not available on the web, the CMS provides access to its constantly-updated database of active SID's (approximately 30,000 sites worldwide) at its website. While access is password protected, you can register for a user name and password especially if you are a commercial company or require this information for your work.
Point to http://cmweb.nws.noaa.gov.
With the retirement of Tom Potter (Western Region) and Doug Sargeant (Office of Systems Development), Jack Kelly has appointed James Campbell as Acting Director of the NWS Western Region and Dr. Harry R. Glahn as Acting Director of the Office of Systems Development.
Dr. James Baker, Commerce Under Secretary for Oceans and Atmosphere, has recently appointed David Evans as the new director of NOAA's Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research replacing recently retired Dr. Joe Friday. Evans has most recently served as the deputy assistant administrator for NOAA's National Marine Fisheries Service for the last year. Prior to that assignment, Dr. Evans was the acting assistant administrator and senior scientist for NOAA's National Ocean Service. He holds an M.S. in Oceanography from Oregon State University and a Ph.D. in Biology from Dalhousie University.
GOES 9 is currently running with both momentum wheels indicating impending failure. If GOES 9 continues to function beyond the operational switch to GOES 10, it will be moved to 105 West and placed in storage. GOES 10 has completed INR navigation stabilization. Engineers have implemented a full disc imaging schedule for west coast coverage in the event of a GOES 9 failure. A maneuver to move the satellite west to its final location is scheduled for Tuesday, July 21st, pending an NWS decision on the final placement.
GOES single chord operations for GOES 8 are necessary due to lunar and solar intrusions to the edge of the earth's disc. The operations affect navigation and registrations for short periods. Users of GOES 8 data will see variable errors due to lunar intrusions during the periods of single chord operations as noted below.
| 07/16 | 2134 to 0026 UTC |
| 07/27 | 0622 to 0912 UTC |
| 07/30 | 0831 to 1121 UTC |
The following are times of GOES 9/10 single chord operations:
| 07/17 | 0145 to 0437 UTC |
| 07/27 | 1029 to 1319 UTC |
| 07/30 | 1236 to 1527 UTC |
GOES 9 sounding products on the NESDIS Office of Research Applications home page have been switched to GOES 10. You can access the page at: http://orbit-net.nesdis.noaa.gov/ora/fpdt1/.
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