NOUS41 KWBC 080311

PNSWSH

Technical Implementation Notice 10-58

National Weather Service Headquarters Washington DC

811 AM EST Wed Dec 8 2010

To:       Subscribers

          -Family of Services

          -NOAA Weather Wire Service

          -NOAAPORT

          -Emergency Managers Weather Information Network

          Other NWS Partners, Users and Employees

From:     Robert Bunge

          Software Branch Chief

          Telecommunication Operations Center

Subject:  Extend Comment Period for Experimental Service Allowing NDFD Users to Identify Updated Grids:  Effective December 13, 2010

Effective December 13, 2010, at approximately 1500 Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), the NWS will extend the comment period for the experimental Recently Updated Grids Service (RUGS) for National Digital Forecast Database (NDFD) files encoded in general regularly-distributed information in binary form (GRIB2). RUGS will allow NDFD users to determine which GRIB2 files have been recently updated. The service can be used to avoid needlessly downloading NDFD files that have not been modified.

RUGS is a web service based on the atom syndication format.  Service users submit an http request to the service consisting of the following inputs:

LOCATIONTYPE:         USER INDICATES WHAT TYPE OF LOCATION INPUT

                      THEY WILL PROVIDE.  SUPPORTED LOCATION

                      TYPES INCLUDE WFO IDENTIFIER, NDFD SECTOR

                      NAME, STATE ABBREVIATION, OR GRID POINT.

LOCATION:             LIST OF LOCATION VALUES APPROPRIATE FOR

                      THE LOCATION TYPE.

ELEMENT:              LIST OF NDFD ELEMENT IDENTIFIERS.

ISSUANCESEARCHTIME:   TIME TO START SEARCHING FOR UPDATED

                      FILES.

SEARCHSTARTTIME:      TIME TO START SEARCHING FOR UPDATED

                      VALID TIMES WITHIN AN UPDATED FILE.

SEARCHENDTIME:        TIME TO STOP SEARCHING FOR UPDATED VALID

                      TIMES WITHIN AN UPDATED FILE.

SHOWCHANGEDTIMES:     REQUEST VALID TIMES THAT CHANGED IN AN

                      UPDATED FILE.

RUGS returns an ATOM document continuing URLs to updated GRIB2 files as constrained by user input.  Users can then download the files by accessing the URL.

More details regarding RUGS will be provided in a service description document which will be added to the online catalog of NWS products and services before the implementation date at:

  https://products.weather.gov/viewliste.php

Additional information regarding RUGS is online at:

  http://www.weather.gov/forecasts/xml/rugs/

For questions regarding this service, please contact:

Robert Bunge                          Carl Mccalla 

Software Branch Chief                 Meteorologist

Telecommunication Operations Center    OST

Silver Spring , MD                      Silver Spring , MD

Robert.Bunge@Noaa.Gov                 Carl.Mccalla@Noaa.Gov

For technical questions regarding NDFD data, please contact:

David Ruth

Chief, Mesoscale Prediction Branch

National Weather Service

Office Of Science And Technology

Silver Spring , MD

David.Ruth@noaa.Gov

Users can provide feedback about the experimental rugs service at the following web address:

  http://www.weather.gov/survey/nws-survey.php?code=rugs

A public comment period will end on September 30, 2011.

National Technical Implementation Notices are online at:

  http://www.weather.gov/os/notif.htm

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