During late March and early April 2012 the Unidata Program Center conducted a survey of Cooperative Opportunity for NCEP Data Using IDD Technology (CONDUIT) users to determine which of the model output currently included in the feed are in use, which are candidates for removal from the feed, and which new model runs (if any) should be added to the feed. You can view the background information presented to survey respondents on the survey page.
The survey listed all of the data feeds currently available through CONDUIT, and asked respondents to indicate which feeds they were currently receiving at their sites, and which feeds they were not making use of (whether or not they currently receive them). We received 47 responses to the survey. (Click on the image of the chart above to view graphical representations of the responses.)
The survey took place in the context of several planned changes to the CONDUIT data streams. First, NCEP's switch from the Rapid Update Cycle (RUC) model to the Rapid Refresh (RAP) model replaces some of the RUC products with their counterparts generated by the RAP model, and removes some RUC products entirely. You can read more about the transition from RUC to RAP in this post. Second, NCEP has plans to update the hardware infrastructure inserting products into the CONDUIT data stream in the near future, providing an opportunity to begin including additional model data.
Among the potential additions to CONDUIT are:
- 32km grids from the RAP model
- Grids from the North American Ensemble Forecast System (NAEFS)
- Hurricane models from the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL) Hurricane Model and the Hurricane Weather Research and Forecast (HWRF)
- Output from the Climate Forecast System (CFS) model
- Output from the Real Time Ocean Forecast System (RTOFS)
(Note that because the volume of output from the CFS and RTOFS models is very large compared to the size of the CONDUIT data stream, only portions of these feeds would be included.)
The Unidata Users Committee, including NCEP Users Committee representative Rebecca Cosgrove, discussed the results of the survey during the April 2012 committee meeting. The committee made the following recommendations:
- Removing some products currently in CONDUIT from the data
feed would free bandwidth for other products. In addition to
the products to be removed in the transition from the RUC
model to the RAP model, several other products currently
included in CONDUIT, including the RUC 40km grids, NAM 90km
Polar grids, and the NAM 45km Alaska grids, appear to be
candidates for removal.
Note that products removed from the CONDUIT data feed will continue to be available from other sources. The Unidata Program Center staff will develop documentation describing how community members who are still interested in using the output from these (and possibly other) models can receive the data after the products are removed from CONDUIT. - Interest in adding the 32km grids from the RAP model is high, and are an obvious replacement for the 40km RUC grids that will no longer be included. This output should be added to CONDUIT when possible.
- Interest in the NAEFS and hurricane model output is also strong; these should be investigated as additions to CONDUIT as well.
- Unidata Program Center staff should contact respondents who expressed interest in receiving the CFS or RTOFS model output to determine whether there are subsets of the full model output that could be included in CONDUIT.
Over the coming months, Program Center staff will continue working with Rebecca Cosgrove at NCEP to update the offerings included in CONDUIT and provide transition information for users of model output that will be removed from the data stream.
