Education Sampler 1992 [NeXTSTEP]/Education_1992_Sampler.iso/Programming/Source/Weather/Weather.app/other/WX-TALK.DOC

Text File | 1992-02-19 | 15.2 KB | 358 lines

           INTRODUCTION TO WX-TALK AND ASSOCIATED SERVICES       13NOV91

The WX-***** lists reside on the VMD.CSO.UIUC.EDU (UIUCVMD) machine at
Urbana-Champaign, Illinois.  They were created for persons interested in
weather.  WX-TALK is intended for discussions and questions.  Some
past topics have included Doppler radar, public warning issuance,
and home satellite reception.  In addition to the discussions, a decoded
(plain language) version of the severe weather outlook is sent to
WX-TALK each week day to help people know when it's a potential severe
weather day.  Some subscribers, especially those who receive a lot of
mail, may choose to subscribe to certain list only when severe weather
is expected within a day or two of their location and then signoff after
the threat is over.

The other lists are designed for receive-only mode.  That is, you will
receive data and products from these lists but you should not attempt to
post mail to them.  * Address all replies or questions to WX-TALK *.
*------------------------------------*-------------------------------------*

Below is a description of the lists:

--> WX-TALK
    A general discussion list for weather-related topics, special event
    notifications, job announcements, and administrative messages.
    This list was formerly STORM-L.

--> WX-SWO
    Severe weather, mesoscale convective, and public severe weather
    outlooks.  The non-public products are in abbreviated (coded) format.

--> WX-WATCH
    Tornado and Severe thunderstorm Watches and cancellations (long
    versions).  Portions of these products are in abbreviated (coded)
    format.

--> WX-WSTAT
    Weather Watch prior notification statements and watch status
    statements. These products are in abbreviated (coded) format.

--> WX-TROPL Tropical Storm Outlook, Hurricane Position Estimates, etc.
    Tropical weather outlooks, hurricane position reports, etc.  This list
    will be most active from June through December.  Portions of these
    products may be in abbreviated (coded) format.

--> WX-PCPN
    Precipitation products including heavy snow and excessive rainfall.
    Products are in abbreviated (coded) format.

--> WX-NATNL
    Public products of national interest like the Selected Cities Forecast.

--> WX-SUM
    National Weather Summary and National Flood Summary.

--> WX-STLT
    Satellite interpretive messages and orbital data.  These messages give
    descriptions of cloud features and disturbances observed by satellite.
    Products are issued by geographical region.  Products are in abbreviated
    (coded) format.

--> WX-LSR
    Local Storm Reports issued by local WSOs and WSFOs.  More detailed
    than the SELS log.  Issued as needed.

--> WX-MISC
    Miscellaneous products like the SELS log, tornado stats, etc.  Several
    of these products will be in tabular format.

***Note:  Abbreviated (coded) products contain word abbreviations and
          contractions.  They can usually be deciphered by looking at
          sentence context.  Airport location identifiers are also used.
          For example, NYC is New York City, NY and STL is St. Louis, MO.
          Decoding software is available on the VMD.CSO.UIUC.EDU machine.
*------------------------------------*-------------------------------------*

Net Protocol.

Although discussion is encouraged on WX-TALK, please be considerate of
others on the list and send *personal* messages directly to the intended
recipient --not the list.  Of course, if you feel your message might be
of interest to everyone, go ahead and post it.  WX-TALK can be used as a
place to announce weather-related job openings, conferences, software,
and to call attention to special events appearing on the other lists.

Due to network delays and outages some postings (especially long ones)
may take several hours (or even days !) to reach everyone.  Keep this in
mind when posting updates that are highly time-critical.  For fastest
delivery, it is recommended that you subscribe to the lists using your
Internet address (if you have one).

Network addresses can be very difficult (if not impossible) to
reconstruct from messages sent through the LISTSERVer.  Please include
your return address on all messages.  Here's a sample signature that
contains just about every address imaginable:

> Chris Novy - WA9V           BITNET: axvsccn@uicvmc
> Southern Illinois Univ.   Internet: [e-mail]
> Morris Library - Systems    Packet: wa9v@wd9ebq    FAX: [phone]
> Carbondale, IL  62901-6632   Phone: [phone]  or  [phone]

Mail is distributed on most of the lists on a daily basis.  Due to
network problems or MAILER problems it may be necessary at times to
remove problem subscribers from the lists without prior notice.  If you
have not received mail from a particular list in several days you
might want to REVIEW the list or ask the list owner for assistance.
*------------------------------------*-------------------------------------*

You may subscribe, signoff, review, and change your distribution options
for any list by sending the appropriate command via interactive message
or by including the command as the ONLY line of a MAIL file to one of the
following addresses:

   LISTSERV@UIUCVMD
   [e-mail]
   [e-mail]

From UUCP/UUNET if the above addresses fail, try:

   uiucuxc!vmd!listserv
*------------------------------------*-------------------------------------*

To subscribe to a new list, WX-MISC for example, use the SUB command:

   SUB WX-MISC <your real name goes here>

Interactive example from CMS:

    TELL LISTSERV AT UIUCVMD SUB WX-MISC T.T. Fujita

MAIL example:

    SUB WX-MISC James T. Kirk


To cancel your subscription to issue the SIGNOFF command:

        SIGNOFF WX-MISC


To see who is subscribed to a particular list issue the REVIEW command:

        REVIEW WX-TALK
*-----------------------------------*--------------------------------------*

Back issues of WX-TALK are maintained in a weekly log and are available
via LISTSERV and anonymous FTP transfer.  Archive files are stored under
the name LOGYYMMW where "YY" is the year (ie. 89) and "MM" is the month
(ie. 03 for March) and "W" is the week --beginning with "A"...then B..C.

For a list of archive files via LISTSERV issue the following command:

       INDEX WX-TALK

This command will return something like...

*  WX-TALK FILELIST for LISTSERV@UIUCVMD.
*
*  NOTEBOOK archives for the list
*  (Weekly notebook)
*                             rec               last - change
* filename filetype   GET PUT -fm lrecl nrecs   date     time   Remarks
* -------- --------   --- --- --- ----- ----- -------- -------- --------------
  WX-TALK  LOG9005C   ALL OWN V      79   935 90/05/21 11:55:59 Started on Wed,
  WX-TALK  LOG9005D   ALL OWN V      80   731 90/05/25 14:41:55 Started on Tue,
  WX-TALK  LOG9005E   ALL OWN V      79   241 90/05/31 11:49:21 Started on Sun,

You could then issue a SENDME command to retrieve a log file.

Example:

       SENDME WX-TALK LOG9005C

*-----------------------------------*--------------------------------------*

FTP users can access the archives via ANONYMOUS file transfer by
connecting to VMD.CSO.UIUC.EDU (128.174.5.98).  After connecting, change
to the LISTSERV sub-directory where the archive files are kept by
issuing the following command:

     CD LISTSERV.193

To see what archive files are available issue a LIST command like:

  LIST WX-TALK  ... or perhaps LIST WX-SWO  ...  or maybe LIST WX-MISC

Please make certain you include a list name after the LIST command.

To retrieve an archive file like the one in the LISTSERV example, enter:

     GET WX-TALK.LOG9005E your.file

where "your.file" is whatever name you want to call your local copy.

*-----------------------------------*--------------------------------------*
                   Retrieving Satellite Pictures

FTP users can access the weather-related software and archived
(GIF format) satellite pictures by connecting to VMD.CSO.UIUC.EDU
(128.174.5.98) and changing to the WX sub-directory.

At present, a North American visible pictures are updated and made
available at about 20 minutes after each hour during the hours of
1520Z through 0120Z.  This translates to 0920 CST through 1920 CST.
Pictures will have filenames like:

    CV100918.GIF

    where -  CV means combined (eastern & western) visible
             10 is the 10th month (October)
             09 is the 9th day of the month
             18 is 1850 hours GMT (approximate time of picture)


The pictures do not have state outlines so you need to use geographic
features like the Great Lakes or Baja Peninsula to orient yourself.

These satellite pictures are also available in LIST3820 laser
printer format at UA1VM.UA.EDU (130.160.4.100) in the DARREN.515
sub-directory.  They will only be stored by request since there are
so many pictures and disk space is limited. Please send mail to
DARREN@UA1VM or [e-mail] if you would like a particular
picture placed in DARREN.515 in LIST3820 format.  Thanks to
Darren Evans-Young.

Other pictures from orbiting satellites are available via ANONYMOUS
FTP from URIACC.URI.EDU in the fna101.195 sub-directory thanks to
Dave E. Tetreault <FNA101@URIACC>.

The satellite files must be retrieved using BINARY or IMAGE mode.
An example for requesting an east coast 1700Z picture on 01/11/91
follows:

    FTP VMD.CSO.UIUC.EDU
    ANONYMOUS
    CD WX
    BINARY
    GET CV011117.GIF
    QUIT

More examples are included at the end of this file.
*-----------------------------------*--------------------------------------*
BITNET users who do not have FTP access may still FTP-request files by
using the BITFTP service machine at PUCC.  You can MAIL a file containing
a complete FTP transaction script to BITFTP@PUCC.  BITFTP will then
perform the FTP transfer and return the file(s) and/or directory listings
requested to you via BITNET.  For more information on how to conduct a
transaction, send a HELP command to [e-mail] as the first line
in a MAIL file or as an interactive message.

Here's a couple sample transactions.  The first gets a directory listing
and the second retrieves a file.

 FTP VMD.CSO.UIUC.EDU                 FTP VMD.CSO.UIUC.EDU
 USER ANONYMOUS WX-TALK               USER ANONYMOUS WX-TALK
 CD WX                                CD WX
 TYPE A                               TYPE I
 DIR *.GIF                            GET CV011117.GIF

Note: Although the VMD and UA1VM FTP machines do not request/require a
      password, you must include a bogus password in your BITFTP transaction
      file.  In the examples below "WX-TALK" is used as the password.

*--------------------------------------*-----------------------------------*
                             * *  WXMAP  * *
   FTP users can also access an automated Surface Analysis and
Radar Summary map (also in GIF format) of the continental US by
connecting to vmd.cso.uiuc.edu and changing to the WX directory.
The surface map is updated hourly and available by 15 minutes past
each hour.  Maps are stored under the following filename format:

    SAmmddhh.GIF

where

   mm is the month (01 for January thru 12 for December)
   dd is the day of the month
   hh is the GMT standard hour (collection time) of the data

For example, a surface map generated using the 8AM CST (14Z) data on
November 13 would have the name SA111314.GIF.  At least 24 hours worth
of old maps will be retained on the system.

The surface weather map is generated by the WXMAP program,
written by Charley Kline of the University of Illinois. The
WXMAP program runs under the X window system. It can produce
weather maps for any part of the country, showing any subset of
what you see in the GIF file. It can display many more reporting
stations than what appears in WXMAP.GIF; most are suppressed in
order to keep that relatively small image legible.

Wxmap gets the information it needs to produce the map from
"packages" which are downloaded over the network. The "packages"
are the result of a data reduction run which happens twice
hourly on an IBM S/6000.  The data reduction runs read "raw"
weather data off the Alden/Zephyr Domestic Data Plus (DD+)
weather feed, a 4800bps teletype circuit which is a merging of
the NWS public products circuit and the NMC's domestic coded
data circuit.

Locally written server software running on a Microvax III sucks
in the DD+ feed and breaks it down into disk files for each
product.  The data reduction runs then access these products via
NFS and produce the "packages" which wxmap then uses to draw the
maps.

Unfortunately, due to contractual obligations with Alden/Zephyr,
the packages can't leave the University of Illinois campus,
since they are deemed by Zephyr to be too close to the raw data
on the feed itself.  Unless a site has its own DD+ contract with
Alden, all that can be released are "value-addeds", of which
WXMAP.GIF is one.
*-----------------------------------*--------------------------------------*
Any questions or problems regarding satellite picture retrieval should be
directed to:

Chris Novy <AXVSCCN@UICVMC> or Darren Evans-Young <[e-mail]>
*-----------------------------------*--------------------------------------*
Contributions to WX-TALK are always welcome and should be sent in MAIL
format to one of the following addresses.

   WX-TALK@UIUCVMD                  WX-TALK@UIUCVMD
   [e-mail]           [e-mail]
   [e-mail]         [e-mail]
   [e-mail]         [e-mail]
   uiucuxc!vmd!wx-talk              uiucuxc!vmd!wx-talk
*-----------------------------------*--------------------------------------*
Several reference files are also available via FTP:

FILENAME       DESCRIPTION
--------       --------------------------------------------------------------
DECODE.ZIP     Contains .EXE & C sourcecode for decoding abbreviated products
FOS.ZIP        Listing of Family of Services products (WordPerfect format)
STATIONS.ZIP   Listing of airport identifiers, lat/long, and elevations

ACUS1.DOC      Information about the SELS Convective Outlook (AC)
COMPANY.DOC    Listing of weather-related companies, addresses, and phone #
SELS.DOC       Information about the SELS Log and Tornado Statistics
SPOTFREQ.DOC   Listing of ham radio frequencies useful for storm chasing
WX-TALK.DOC    This file

STATIONS.GIF   Graphic showing station (airport) location identifiers
WXKEY.GIF      Graphic explaining the symbols used in WXMAP.GIF images

UNABR.XEDIT        CMS XEDIT program for decoding abbreviated products
WEATHER.ABBREVS    Abbreviation file used with UNABR.XEDIT
WEATHER.FULLWORDS  Translation file used with UNABR.XEDIT
*-----------------------------------*--------------------------------------*

If you have any questions or comments please send them to me at one of the
addresses below.  Thank you for your interest in the WX services.
*------------------------------------*-------------------------------------*
Chris Hayes Novy - WA9V         BITNET: axvsccn@uicvmc
Southern Illinois Univ.       Internet: [e-mail]
Morris Library - Systems         Phone: [phone]  or  [phone]
Carbondale, IL 62901-6632          FAX: [phone]
                                  ICBM: 37.43N  89.12W
*--------------------------------------------------------------------------*