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FROM: John H. Ward
Chief, Production Management Branch
SUBJECT: Changes to the NWS Production Suite
Beginning on or about 1 June 2004 NCEP will begin the transition
in the file naming convention for the Global
Forecast System (GFS). Currently most GFS files are identified by the
AVN acronym. Over the next six to nine months all
references to AVN will be replaced by GFS. As a first step, on or about
1 June 2004, a duplicate file structure will be
provided on both the TOC and NCEP FTP servers. All file structures
containing AVN will have a duplicate link containing
GFS. These duplicate file structures will remain in place for 6
months. On approximately 1 December 2004, all file
structures containing AVN will be eliminated. Additional details about
this transition will be
provided as they become available.
Currently, on both the NCEP and TOC FTP servers, over 50% of the
gridded NCEP model data sets are not being
accessed. A review of file access on both FTP servers was conducted
during the months of January and February 2004. From
this review a list of the unaccessed data sets has been generated. It
is NCEP's intention to remove these data sets, but we would like to first
solicit
feedback from our users. The proposed list of data sets to be removed has been
posted on
the NCEP web site at the following location:
http://www.nco.ncep.noaa.gov/pmb/products/ftp_removal_list.html
An E-mail address has been provided on this web page to allow
for users to provide feedback. Data sets were only included on this
list if they were unused on both the TOC and NCEP
servers. User comments on this list will be accepted through 15 June
2004. On 29 June 2004, all files deemed unnecessary
will be removed from the NCEP ftp server. This process will provide the
additional server resources to host higher
temporal and spatial resolution data not currently available.
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