20010216: LAT,LON for KVVV

>From: alan anderson <address@hidden>
>Organization: St. Cloud State
>Keywords: 200102152236.f1FMa1L12244

Alan,

>Hope you are all enjoying winter.  We a getting a bit tired, but
>help is on the way.

Things have not been bad down here.

>A couple of comments, questions.

>    My meticulus colleague, Bob Weisman, has noted another item 
>    regarding mcidasx.  
>    He has noted that MCIDAS lists a station here in MN with an 
>    incorrect location.
 
>    KVVV  Ortonville MN should be listed as  45.57N,  -98.18W

The McIDAS-X 7.7x station database lists the location for KVVV as follows:

STNLIST KVVV
 IDN  ID     Station Name         Data Types      ST CO  LAT        LON        
ELE
 ---  KVVV   Ortonville           M               MN US   45:18:20   96:25:28   
335
Number of stations listed: 1
STNLIST: Done

The LAT,LON expressed as decimal fractions of degrees would be:

45.31 96.42

This matches what GEMPAK has.


>    I don't know how MCIDAS currently lists it, but I think it 
>    is shown as much farther North.

Not in 7.7.  It is near the "bulge" on the western side of MN.

>    I expect this is something to send to SSEC, but I don't have
>    the right address handy.  If you want me to send it direct to
>    them, just let me know.

Is it possible that you are seeing this in output from a 7.6 system?
If so, the problem has been fixed in 7.7.

>I thought I had another specific question, but I can't recall anything
>right now.  I am bringing another MCIDAS terminal to life, another 
>Sun, using Solaris (sparc) ver. 8.  No problems and next I guess I 
>need to upgrade some others from earlier versions (7.6, and very early
>7.7).  I am guessing this is pretty straight-forward, i.e. follow the
>directions on web site.

It should be very easy.

>One of the problems with this is that I took the comment of my colleague
>but did not check myself.  I just went to a MCIDAS terminal + some 
>other written materials.
>
>From an aviation source that I have, the airport at Ortonville has  
>the coordinates you show above;  45.31N -96.42W
>This is also very close to the coordinates listed for the airport 
>by NWS.

It also matches what GEMPAK and McIDAS report.

>When I use the FIND command in MCIDAS, ( FIND MN Ortonville )
>it also lists the above lat/long 
>values, although it shows two sets of coordinates that are very close to
>one another.  Don't know why there are two, but either is close enough.

The location that will be used for the decoders is in the station database.
Information about stations from the database can be listed using
STNLIST in McIDAS-X 7.7x:

STNLIST KVVV

etc.

>The problem comes when MCIAS plots a map of station IDs.
>When I ask MCIDAS to plot station IDs,  KVVV shows up near the NW corner 
>of Minn., while it actually is located much farther South,  near the 
>"bump" of MN that extends into South Dakota.  

I don't see this here using 7.7.  The output I am seeing can be
viewed at:

http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/staff/tom/stnlocs.gif

KVVV is just below the western bulge.

>This is the error that was the basis of my original message. 
>Evidently the file that includes the map plots for station IDs
>has KVVV in the wrong place.

Not in 7.7.

>Sorry I was not more specific in the first place.

Please let me know if the system you are using when seeing the problem
is a 7.6 one (meaning that the machine on which the decoding is being
done is using the 7.6 station database).  If it is, the remedy is
upgrading to 7.7 on the machine running the XCD decoders.  If it is
already a 7.7 one, the rememdy might be upgrading to the current
addendum for 7.7.  In either case, please let me know if the plotting
continues to be incorrect.

Tom

>From address@hidden Fri Feb 16 16:33:51 2001
>Subject: mcidasx & location of VVV

I am about to leave so cannot say for sure, but my guess is that
this problem is on a machine with  7.6.  Another reason to get 
on with the upgrade.

Alan