[McIDAS #HWD-204740]: Watch boxes not plotting on McIDAS

Gilbert and Paul,

I just received an email from the McIDAS developers at SSEC regarding the
inability of WWDISP to plot thunderstorm and tornado watch boxes.  I
figured that I would pass it along to you so you can see that your
inquiry has not been forgotten:

Hello McIDAS Users,

Some of you may have noticed that the WWDISP command is no longer
plotting severe thunderstorm and tornado watch boxes. We researched the
problem and found that the NWS products containing the watch box
locations were moved to WWUS60 on 14 February 2006.

The problem wasn't detected until recently because of the relatively
small number of severe weather watches before mid-March. We are working
on a fix for the problem, and will include it in an upcoming McIDAS-X
Fastrack version.

In the meantime, you can plot the severe thunderstorm and tornado
watches by county (instead of boxes) by specifying PLOT=COUNTY with
your WWDISP commands.  Please note that plotting the watches by
county may be preferable, as the Storm Prediction Center states that
the actual watches are defined by the counties rather than the boxes
(e.g., see the Note: below the graphic at
http://www.spc.noaa.gov/products/watch/ww0115_prob.html).

Please accept our apologies for this problem. We do our best to watch
for NWS announcements of changes that affect the McIDAS software.
However, we missed this one because it was not broadcast in the normal
locations for such changes.<br>

Thank you,
McIDAS User Services

Cheers,

Tom
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Ticket Details
===================
Ticket ID: HWD-204740
Department: Support McIDAS
Priority: Normal
Status: On Hold