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20040330: VWX not in GEMPAK or McIDAS tables

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  • Subject: 20040330: VWX not in GEMPAK or McIDAS tables
  • Date: Wed, 31 Mar 2004 12:08:01 -0700
>From: Robert Mullenax <address@hidden>
>Organization: Universal Weather
>Keywords: 200403310506.i2V568rV004956 McIDAS NEXRAD STNDB.SITE NEXRAD.DAT

Hi Robert,

>Just a heads up, the new (as of last December) radar site in
>Evansville, IN, VWX, is not in GEMPAK's
>nexrad.tbl nor in the McIDAS station tables.

OK.  I just added an entry for VWX into the McIDAS site station database,
STNDB.SITE, and Unidata MCGUI table, NEXRAD.DAT.  I got a different
for the site than Chiz did, however:

Chiz's values:
 >I have added it in the upcoming release. But, its not the same type of
 >radar as the others. See the ROC
 >web pages on station information.
 >
 >VWX      000851 EVANSVILLE/Gibson                IN US  3707  -8877 187  0 NWS

Mine:

VWX 851 IN/Evansville                  OWENSVILLE 38:15:04N  087:42:48W    187  
NWS

I verified mine by loading the latest N0R image from VWX in two different
ways and then looping the results:

IMGDISP RTNEXRAD/N0R 1 SF=YES ID=VWX LINELE=230 230 PLA=C EU=BREF 
REFRESH='EG;MAP H'
IMGDISP RTNEXRAD/N0R 2 SF=YES ID=VWX STA=VWX EU=BREF REFRESH='EG;MAP H'

This, at least, verifies that the STNDB.SITE entry I added for VWX
is within the plotting resolution of McIDAS.

>Hmm..not the same type?  I assumed since it was in the NOAAport
>feed it was a standard 88D.

If you go to the ROC web page:

Radar Operations Center
http://roc.noaa.gov/

  Site ID Database
  http://roc.noaa.gov/ssb/srchmain.asp

    Site ID Search
    http://roc.noaa.gov/ssb/queries/siteid/search.asp

      Interactive Map
      http://roc.noaa.gov/INTERACTIVE/defaultNS.asp

Click on Radar, and choose Indiana as the state, and you will get a
plot of radars in Indiana.  Notice how the labeling on the map
says EVANSVILLE,IN (NON-NEXRAD).

Next, click on Identity and then click on the Evansville radar
(zooms in again).  Notice how the table also says that the radar
is NON-NEXRAD.

I agree with you that this is in direct contradiction to two facts:

- we are getting VWX reports in the NOAAPORT NEXRAD stream

- the site is reporting a compete set of NEXRAD products:

/data/ldm/pub/raw/nexrad/current/VWX% ls
N1P/  NTP/  N2S/  N1S/  N1R/  N0V/  N0Z/  NVL/  NCR/
N3S/  N3R/  N2R/  N1V/  N0S/  N0R/  NET/  NVW/

So, I conclude that the Radar Operation Center web pages are out of
date.

Cheers,

Tom
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>From address@hidden  Wed Mar 31 12:42:51 2004

Thanks, Tom.