20010117: update of NEXR ADDE servers for NWS FTP NIDS products

>From: "Hoeth, Brian" <address@hidden>
>Organization: JSFC
>Keywords: 200101172009.f0HK9le29791 McIDAS ADDE NEXRADIR NEXRAGE

Brian,

re: NEXR ADDE server support for NIDS products FTPed from NWS Central
Server

Using the Layer Reflectivity product that you provided, I verified your
observeration that the 7.704 version of the NEXRAD ADDE servers would
not work with the NIDS products FTPed from the NWS Central Server.

I found the problem in the nexrutil.c set of subroutines (omission of
some code) and fixed it this morning.  I have verified that I can now
list and display the layer reflectivity image you provided, but this is
not what I would call a comprehensive test.

I put the latest versions of NEXRAD ADDE servers and support routines
in the file nexrupdate.tar.Z which you can find in the pub/mcidas
directory of anonymous FTP on the Unidata FTP server,
ftp.unidata.ucar.edu.

To update your system, you should do the following:

<login as 'mcidas'>
cd mcidas7.7
ftp ftp.unidata.ucar.edu
  <user> anonymous
  <pass> your_full_email_address
  cd pub/mcidas
  binary
  get nexrupdate.tar.Z
  get nexrupdate.list
  quit
zcat nexrupdate.tar.Z | tar xvf -
cd src
make nexradir nexraget
<verify that the newly built versions of nexradir and nexraget are
linked to the ~mcidas/bin directory>

nexrupdate.list simply contains the list of files in the compressed tar
file.

The updated source and header files in nexrupdate.tar.Z are designed to
be unpacked from the ~mcidas/mcidas7.7 directory (the references are to
the src directory: src/nexrutuil.c, src/nexrutil.h, etc.).

Please note that the versions of code that I am providing are not
simple mods to the versions that were in the SSEC 7.704 Fastrack;  they
are, in fact, versions that will be released in a future SSEC
Fastrack.  The major change from the version you have is the
enforcement by the servers (both ADIR and AGET) of specification of the
station ID= by the user.  What I mean by this is:

IMGLIST NEXRAD/BREF1          <- would work in 7.704 but not this code

IMGLIST NEXRAD/BREF1 ID=HGX   <- will work since the ID= is specified
IMGLIST NEXRAD/BREF1 ID=LIST  <- will work since the ID= is specified

The reason for requiring the user to specify the station ID is to cut
down on the amount of time the server will spend trying to satisfy the
list/display request.  The speedup is massive when a site is saving all
NEXRAD sites and keeping a large number of each type of product for
each site.

One last note: there may be some product types out on the NWS FTP site
that are not supported by the current implementation of the NEXRAD
servers.  The servers were originally designed to support the full
suite of products that sites could get from WSI Corporation.  These
include:

BREF1:  Base Reflectivity Tilt 1
BREF2:  Base Reflectivity Tilt 2
BREF3:  Base Reflectivity Tilt 3
BREF4:  Base Reflectivity Tilt 4
CREF:   Composite Reflectivity
LREF1:  Layer Reflect SFC-24 K ft
LREF2:  Layer Reflect 24-33 K ft
LREF3:  Layer Reflect 33-60 K ft
TOPS:   Echo Tops
VIL:    Vertical Liquid H2O
PRE1:   1-hour Surface Rain Total
PRE3:   3-hour Surface Rain Total
PRET:   Storm Total Rainfall
VEL1:   Radial Velocity Tilt 1
VEL2:   Radial Velocity Tilt 2
VEL3:   Radial Velocity Tilt 3
VEL4:   Radial Velocity Tilt 4
BRLR1:  248 nm Base Reflectivity
SRMV1:  Storm-Rel Mean Vel Tilt 1
SRMV2:  Storm-Rel Mean Vel Tilt 2

As the NWS adds more products to the list, nidsutil.[ch] will need to
be updated to support them.  If you find such files, please pass them
along so I can incorporate the necessary modifications.  -- thanks in
advance --

Please let me know the results of your tests of the new code.

Tom

>From address@hidden Fri Jan 19 13:10:37 2001
>Subject: RE: 20010117: update of NEXR ADDE servers for NWS FTP NIDS products

>Tom,

>Thanks again for your timely response and all your hard work!!  I'll let you
>know what happens once we put this change on.   FYI ... I believe all we
>need from NWS is LREF1, LREF2, and LREF3, so hopefully we won't run into
>problems.  

>Talk soon,
>Brian