20000922: BLIZZARD data set access

>From: alan anderson <address@hidden>
>Organization: St. Cloud State
>Keywords: 200009222142.e8MLgOb21234 McIDAS tutorial BLIZZARD ADDE

Alan,

>While promoting the use of the MCIDAS Learning Guide to
>our students, I note that we do not have a copy on any of
>our local machines.  Using ADDE.UNIDATA.UCAR.EDU  is ok, 
>but can be slow, and we have enough disk space locally.

Excellent.

>Where can I find a copy of this dataset to transfer up
>so that it can be on a local disk?  I looked in the web
>based copy of the Learning guide, but did not find the
>info. I needed.

The Blizzard '93 dataset can be found in the compressed tar file
learn.data.tar.Z in the data/tutorial directory of our passworded
McIDAS FTP account (you should have the user name and password already).

Please remember to:

o FTP the data in binary mode
o change your ADDE setup to point at your local copy of the data files

I send out the McIDAS-X distribution configured so that users can put the
Blizzard data files in the tutorial subdirectory of ~mcidas/data.  Also,
my example set of McIDAS file REDIRECTions, ~mcidas/data/EXAMPLE.NAM
has entries that locate those files in /home/mcidas/data/tutorial.  If
your setup matches the recommended default, you should be able to
get the BLIZZARD ADDE dataset setup with a minimum of effort:

<login as 'mcidas'>
cd data/tutorial
ftp ftp.unidata.ucar.edu
  <user>
  <pass>
  cd data/tutorial
  binary
  get learn.data.tar.Z
  quit
zcat learn.data.tar.Z | tar xvf -
rm learn.data.tar.Z

cd ~/workdata
dataloc.k ADD BLIZZARD waldo.stcloudstate.edu

>Thanks
>Alan 

Tom