On October 1, 1998, several significant changes will take place in the dissemination of moored buoy and Coastal Marine Automated Network (C-MAN) observations reported by the National Data Buoy Center (NDBC). NDBC products will contain groups of moored buoy and C-MAN observations every five minutes instead of four times an hour. However, most stations will still transmit one observation per hour. The change will improve the timeliness of the data. Users may need to increase the number of product versions retained in their workstations to maintain the same time history of observations. The three hourly pressure tendency groups will always be included if the current observation and the observation three hours ago contain pressure.
The threshold for coding calm sea state will change from a significant wave height of .25 meters to a wave height of .15 meters. Wind gusts will always be transmitted regardless of the wind speed. Because of rounding in light winds, the gusts will sometimes equal the speed.
More accurate latitude and longitude values will be used starting October 1, 1998. Three hourly transmissions of spectral wave data will stop. For a complete description of all these changes please read the entire change notice at:
At 1500 UTC on September 30, 1998, the NWS will implement phase 2 changes in National Weather Service Communications Identifiers. Refer to the change identifier (CID) notices on the home page. Specifically point to CID 98-2, CID 98-3 and CID 98-4 at
On October 8, 1998, the Site Identifier for Ashtabula Idaho will change from 7G2 to HZY.
Effective November 25, 1998, at 1100 UTC, the NWS Forecast Office in Cheyenne, Wyoming, will implement a newly-developed winter weather severity index (WWSI) to convey the forecast impact of winter weather elements on life and property. This is a proof of concept test that will continue through April 1999. Customer reaction to the WWSI will decide its further expansion or refinement in the 1999-2000 winter. The WWSI product will be available through the Family of Services and the NOAA Weather Wire Service. For a complete description of the index and the products, please point to the NWS Office of Meteorology Change Notification Homepage: http://www.nws.noaa.gov/om/notif.htm.
The September 28, 1998, planned changes to the Global Model runs described in the last IM Update will soon be available in a technical Procedures Bulletin TPB 450 available on the Office of Meteorology Homepage. Point to:
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