Welcome back to AWIPS Tips!
This week we are going to look at how to display a variety of text products generated by Warning Forecast Offices and are available in our AWIPS database. This functionality is new for our release of CAVE and did not previously work in v18. First we’ll start by opening the ToolsText Window… or Text Workstation > Text 1. This will bring up a blank text window.
If you know the specific WMO header or AWIPS ID you can type it in at the top and press enter. Otherwise to browse through all available text products, select the AWIPS Browser button. This will bring up a new window. First, select which type of text product you want to load by selecting a Category in the first column. A list of text 3-letter product identifiers and descriptions can be found here.
Once you select a Category (product ID), the Designator column will populate with a list of forecast offices. If you are unsure what the letters mean, you can select the Help drop down and see a description of each of the office designators. Once you select an office designator, the site and products will populate in columns 3 and 4. You can select which product time you want to load, the most recent will be at the top. Once you have your time selected, click the Load and Close button and you’ll see the text product in your text window!
While you can load individual TAFs (terminal aerodrome forecasts) and METARs from the AWIPS Browser, you can also load all of the latest TAF’s or METARS by using the Products menu and selecting Latest METARs or Latest TAFs.
Check back in two weeks for the next blog post.
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This blog was posted in reference to v20.3.2-2 of NSF Unidata AWIPS
