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20001019: NWS NOAAport message (fwd)



>From: Tom McDermott <address@hidden>
>Organization: SUNY/Brockport
>Keywords: 200010191511.e9JFBI427781 difax issues

Tom-

>I gathered from one of the messages last week, I believe it was Dan
>Vietor's, that NWS will continue to have DIFAX tiff files available at
>their web sites even if FOS transmission is terminated as today's notice
>threatens.  If not, ftp'ing those files is certainly no long-term solution
>to the dilemma created by Alden's demise.

It's our understanding from talking to the NWS that the charts on the
FTP and Web servers will go away on April 30 also.  We had pushed for
that info to be included in the announcement, but perhaps it will be
in the future notifications indicated in the announcement.  The key
thing to read in the announcement is that DIFAX is no longer required
to support NWS operations.  To me that would say that they will stop
producing DIFAX maps since the products are available in modern
formats (e.g. Redbook Graphics).

In any case, relying on the DIFAX products is a dead end.  The
Unidata User's Committee is exploring options for community generated
products.  I was just at UW-Madison and looked at the charts they
produce using GEMPAK.  They've done a good job and their scripts
are available as one of the options that Unidata has posted at:

http://unidata.ucar.edu/community.difax.html

To me, these are much better than using the old DIFAX maps.
You can't get ensemble forecast charts on DIFAX.

<RANT> 
Additionally, from a pedagogical view, using the tools that
Unidata provides to create and print custom displays seems a better
alternative to using DIFAX anyway for exploring the atmosphere. We all
went through the process of shading in areas of NVA and PVA on the
NGM charts. Wouldn't it be better to use GEMPAK to generate maps with
quantitative contours of NVA and PVA rather than use the subjective hand
analyses? With DIFAX, the views are dictated by the products that the
NWS creates. Those views haven't changed in 30 years, but our knowledge
of how best to look at features has. The tools we have can generate
the "old" views, but also new views (isentropic analyses, ensemble
forecasts, etc).  Perhaps using them will help advance the knowledge
and science.
</RANT>

Don
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Don Murray                               UCAR Unidata Program
address@hidden                        P.O. Box 3000
(303) 497-8628                              Boulder, CO 80307
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