NOUS41 KWBC 272020 AAA
PNSWSH
     
Service Change Notice 10-47, Amended
National Weather Service Headquarters Washington DC
320 PM EST Thu Jan 27, 2011
         
TO:       Subscribers:
          -Family of Services
          -NOAA Weather Wire Service
          -Emergency Managers Weather Information Network
          -NOAAPORT 
          Other NWS Partners and Employees
 
From:     Kevin Schrab       
          Chief, Observing Services Division 
          Office of Climate Water and Weather Services 
 
Subject:  Amended: To report the official release point datum
          for the Las Vegas, NV, Radiosonde Replacement
          System (RRS) site
      
The original notice dated Nov 10, 2010, contained provisional 
datum information and the elevation value was subsequently 
revised. The official value is now 693.234 meters as indicated 
in this amendment. All other information remains unchanged. The 
original notice is below for your convenience.

The NWS Weather Forecast Office (WFO) in Las Vegas, NV, (VEF) 
initiated daily RRS UA observations on Dec. 18, 2010 and reached 
twice per day observations on Jan. 16, 2011. This change follows 
the termination at Desert Rock (DRA) of Radiotheodolite Tracking 
(ART) and Radio Direction Finding (RDF) radiosonde observations. 
 
Please update your metadata files for these initial coordinates 
immediately so your UA derived products will not give erroneous 
information.
 
Table 1. Initial Coordinates of Las Vegas Release Point Location
 
NAME       INDEX     LAT            LON             ELEVATION
LAS VEGAS  72388     36.047139N     115.184639W     693.234 M
 
NOTE:  The WMO Index Number Will Be 72388.
 
All users are advised to update their communications identifiers 
immediately in order to receive upper-air coded text products 
from Las Vegas. 
 
TABLE 2. New AWIPS IDs and New WMO Headings
 
Current   Current             New       New
AWIPS ID  WMO Headings        AWIPS ID  WMO Headings
 
ABVDRA    UFUS45 KDRA         ABVVEF    UFUS45 KVEF
FZLDRA    UXUS45 KDRA         FZLVEF    UXUS45 KVEF
MANDRA    USUS45 KDRA         MANVEF    USUS45 KVEF
SGLDRA    UMUS45 KDRA         SGLVEF    UMUS45 KVEF
 
Institutional and commercial distributors who generate derived 
products must ensure their communication system directories 
exactly match the new headings by Dec. 18, 2010. Failure to do 
so will prevent UA data from Las Vegas from reaching the 
intended user communities.
 
Although the effective date for this change is less than the 
75-days advised in NWSI 10-1805, a 36-day lead time should be 
sufficient when NWS directly informs service providers to make a 
priority change in their product meta data to prevent 
implementation delays. To check the availability of Las Vegas 
products go to:
 
http://esrl.noaa.gov/raobs/
 
-Search by "WMO Station Identifier"
-When a blank dialogue window appears, enter: 72388
 
You should then be able to view the Las Vegas data and metadata.
 
If you have questions or feedback, please contact: 
 
Ivan Navarro                  
National Weather Service, OPS11       
1325 East West Highway         
Silver Spring, MD 20910         
301-713-1841 Ext 123            
Ivan.Navarro@noaa.gov
                             
National Service Change Notices are online at:
 
  http://www.weather.gov/os/notif.htm
 
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