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---------- Forwarded Message ----------
SUBJECT: Changes to the NWS Production Suite
The quarterly backup exercise scheduled for Thursday, 26
February was canceled due to critical weather. It has been
rescheduled for the 12 UTC model cycle on Thursday, 4 March. If
critical weather conditions prevent the test from being performed,
a new date will be scheduled, with a minimum 30 day notice. During
this test no operational products will be available from the
Central Computer System (CCS). NGM and GFS MOS will be transmitted
at the conclusion of the test. Backup products will be made
available on the TOC FTP server in place of the NCEP products.
Further information on the type of products available from the
backup processing and their approximate delivery times can be found
at the following web site:
http://www.nco.ncep.noaa.gov/pmb/ncepbk/ncep_backup.html
At 12 UTC on Tuesday, 2 March 2004, NCEP will be making changes
to the way we execute the 00 and 12 UTC RUC models. Currently the
RUC analysis executes twice at 00 and 12 UTC. The first run is at
the standard data cut-off period of T+25 minutes. The second run
starts at T+70 minutes and is used to create the RUC forecasts at 00
and 12 UTC. On the above date the early run will be discontinued.
If you are accustomed to downloading the RUC analysis at 00 and 12
UTC based off of this early analysis from the NCEP or NWS FTP
servers, you will now have to wait an additional 40 minutes for this
product to become available. This change is being made as there is
no longer a NWS requirement to produce an early RUC analysis at 00
and 12 UTC. This will not affect the timeliness of the 00 and 12
UTC RUC forecasts, nor the other 22 RUC analysis and forecast runs
that are made daily.
On 9 March additional ensemble products will become available
on the Telecommunication Operations Center's (TOC) FTP server.
Details on file size and content for this series of changes can be
found at:
http://www.nco.ncep.noaa.gov/pmb/changes/Ncep_dataflow_changes.html
On Tuesday, 20 April 2004, the configuration of the Eta Model
will be modified to allow for the 0 - 84 hour forecast to run in the
current 0 - 60 hour time slot. This will be a permanent change.
The expected new delivery times for Eta products are as follows:
24 hr products: 5-10 minutes earlier
36 hr products: 15-20 minutes earlier
48 hr products: 15-20 minutes earlier
60 hr products: 20-25 minutes earlier
84 hr products: 35-40 minutes earlier
More precise times will be provided when they become available.
Details on the change can be found at:
http://www.nws.noaa.gov/om/notifications/tin04-07eta_compression.txt
Currently, on both the NCEP and TOC FTP servers, over 50% of
the gridded NCEP model data sets are not being accessed. In June
2004, unused model data will be removed from both the TOC & NCEP FTP
servers. During January and February file access on both FTP
servers will be reviewed. A list of files to be removed will be
posted on the TOC and NCEP WEB sites by 1 April. Files will only be
included on this list if they are unused on both servers. A minimum
of 60 days will be provided for user comments. In early June all
files deemed unnecessary will be removed. This process will provide
the server resources to host higher temporal and spatial resolution
data not currently available. Further details will be provided as
they become available.
<snip>
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Starting with the 12 UTC model cycle on Tuesday, 2 March 2004,
the 00 and 12 UTC RUC analyses will only be executed one once per
cycle. Currently both of these runs perform two analyses based on
two different data cut-off times (T+0:26 and T+0:58). After this
change has been made only the analysis based off data from the
T+0:58 cut-off time will be will be run. Items 101 - 117 below are
associated with this change.
<snip>
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