NOUS41 KWBC 281927 AAC

PNSWSH

 

Technical Implementation Notice 11-10, Amended

National Weather Service Headquarters Washington DC

225 PM EST Mon Nov 28 2011

 

To:       Subscribers:

          -Family of Services

          -NOAA Weather Wire Service

          -Emergency Managers Weather Information Network

          -NOAAPORT

          Other NWS Partners, Users and Employees

 

From:     Timothy McClung

          Chief, Science Plans Branch

          Office of Science and Technology

 

Subject:  Amended: Change to Wave Model Products:

          Effective Date Postponed

 

Amended to postpone this implementation until late December 

or early January 2012 due to the need for further evaluation. 

In addition, due to the large file size of the

multi_1.txxz.spec_tar file currently being disseminated 

via the NCEP server, NCEP will begin making this spectral output

file available in compressed format with the filename

multi_1.txxz.spec_tar.gz.  In a future implementation in 2012,

the non-compressed file will be removed from the NCEP server, so

NWS encourages users to begin transitioning to the compressed

version now.

 

Effective January 2012 at a date to be determined, NCEP will

modify the spectral output grid products from the Multi-grid

Global Wave Model. 

 

This model is run using WAVEWATCH-III v3.14. Recent upgrades of

the model to v3.14 increased the spectral resolution of the

model from a 25x24 spectral domain (frequency and direction) to

a 50x36 domain. For backward compatibility, however, the

spectral output from the model was kept at 25x24.  This upgrade

will change the spectral output to match the internal model

domain. 

 

The key changes are as follows: 

 

1. The frequency spectrum will now start from 0.035

   (instead of 0.0412) 

 

2. The logarithmic increment will now be 1.07 (as opposed to

   1.1). i.e., the next frequency will be 7% higher as opposed

   to 10% higher earlier. 

 

3. There will be 50 frequency components as opposed to the

   earlier 25 frequency components (with the highest resolved

   frequency being 0.963 as opposed to 0.406 earlier) 

 

4. There will be 36 directional components as opposed to the

   24 directional components earlier. This means that the

   directional resolution will now be 10 degrees as opposed to

   15 degrees earlier

 

The spectral output files from these models are disseminated via

the NCEP server at

 

http://www.ftp.ncep.noaa.gov/data/nccf/com/wave/prod/

and

ftp://ftp.ncep.noaa.gov/pub/data/nccf/com/wave/prod/

 

The following files will be affected:

 akw.txxz.spec_tar 

 enp.txxz.spec_tar 

 multi_1.txxz.spec_tar

 wna.txxz.spec_tar

 

where xx is the model cycle.

 

This change will not affect the non-spectral output files from

these models.  The spectral products that are changing are not

available on NOAAPORT or in AWIPS.

  

Sample output files reflecting this spectral resolution change

are available at:

 

ftp://polar.ncep.noaa.gov/pub/waves/devop/

 

Details about the NCEP Multi-grid Wave Model are online at:

 

http://polar.ncep.noaa.gov/waves/index2.shtml

 

For questions regarding these model changes, please contact:

 

  Hendrik Tolman

  NCEP/Marine Modeling and Analysis Branch

  Camp Springs, Maryland

  301-763-8000 ext 7253

  hendrik.tolman@noaa.gov

 

For questions regarding the dataflow aspects of these data sets,

please contact:

 

  Rebecca Cosgrove

  NCEP/NCO Dataflow Team

  Camp Springs, Maryland 20746

  301-763-8000 x 7198

  ncep.list.pmb-dataflow@noaa.gov

 

NWS National Technical Implementation Notices are online at:

 

  http://www.nws.noaa.gov/os/notif.htm

 

$$