20010108: coding of data in mcidas products

>From: alan anderson <address@hidden>
>Organization: St. Cloud State
>Keywords: 200101081819.f08IJqo10998 McIDAS weather symbol


Alan,

Sorry I couldn't respond to this earlier...

>My colleague reminded me this morning that MCIDAS apparently is still 
>using outdated FAA coding expressions, at least in some products, rather
>than those standard with NWS METARs. 
>
>Examples include that in the command SFCLIST, under the column for Weather,
>
>    Light rain showers should now be coded as  -RA   not    RW-
>
>    ice pellots should now be coded as          PL   not    IP
>
>    light snow  should now be coded as         -SN   not    S-
>
>
>The raw data listings are ok, i.e. raw METARs, but products that 
>MCIDAS  'decodes' appear with these old expressions.
>
>I assume that this is something that has just not changed from the 
>'old' system, but the METAR code has now been the official standard
>for a few years.  
>
>Could you check on this? 

I am CCing this to a developer at SSEC for review.

Tom Yoksas