[nws-changes] 20111220: soil moisture Fwd: ADMIN NOTICE NOUS41 KWBC

• To: nws-changes@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
• Subject: [nws-changes] 20111220: soil moisture Fwd: ADMIN NOTICE NOUS41 KWBC
• From: Linda Miller <lmiller@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
• Date: Tue, 20 Dec 2011 07:30:00 -0700

-------- Original Message --------

996
NOUS41 KWBC 201230
PNSWSH

Technical Implementation Notice 11-55
National Weather Service Headquarters Washington DC
730 AM EST Tue Dec 20 2011

To:       Subscribers
          -Family of Services
          -NOAA Weather Wire Service
          -NOAAPORT
          -Emergency Managers Weather Information Network
          Other NWS Partners, Users and Employees

From:     Jay Lawrimore
          Chief, Climate Analysis Branch
          National Climatic Data Center

SUBJECT:  Soil Moisture and Soil Temperature Data Entering
          Hourly02 and Daily01 Products
          Effective January 31, 2012

Effective Tuesday, January 31, 2012, at approximately 1500
Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), The National Climatic Data
Center will begin populating the soil moisture and soil
temperature fields for U.S. Climate Reference Network (USCRN)
stations in the hourly02 (CRNH02) and daily01 (CRND01) products.
The U.S. Historical Climatology Network-Modernization (USHCN-M)
station soil fields in these product columns will continue to
report missing values since only USCRN stations make soil
observations.

For both products the fields for average soil moisture at 5cm,
10cm, 20cm, 50cm, and 100cm will each remain 7 characters in
length, and will present fractional volumetric water content to
the nearest thousandth.  Soil moisture fields with missing data
will have the number -99.000.

For both products, the fields for soil temperature will remain
7 characters long, presenting the soil temperature in degrees
Celsius to the nearest tenth, with -9999.0 indicating a missing
value.

The documentation for both products will also be revised so that
the soil moisture column names and definitions will clearly
indicate that the fields contain fractional volumetric water
content.

If you have questions or feedback, please contact:

  Scott Embler
  National Climatic Data Center
  151 Patton Ave
  Asheville, NC  28803
  828-350-2027
  Scott.Embler@xxxxxxxx

NWS Technical Implementation Notices are online at:

  http://www.weather.gov/os/notif.htm

$$