CONDUIT Status and Implementation Update
As of December 1, 2005 the CONDUIT data stream volume is 30 GB per day and is currently being
received by at least 80 unique hosts in 50 domains, including sites in the United States, Brazil and Portugal.
Sites reporting reception include research and education universities, government facilities and laboratories, as
well as both commercial and non-profit organizations. A moratorium on changes to operational systems within
the NWS has been in place since mid-2005 to facilitate the upgrade of the underlying network for data
distribution including the delivery of data products for insertion to the CONDUIT data stream. The lifting of the
moratorium is expected to occur during March-April 2006, following which, changes to the content of the
CONDUIT data stream are planned based on user needs and capabilities.
Schedule of planned changes to CONDUIT data stream following lifting of moratorium
NAM Grids: 10-14 days notice following moratorium
- Replace NAM 215 (20km) GRIB1 surface field grids with NAM 218 (12km) GRIB2 3d grids. Data files
currently exist on TOC servers for users to prepare processing codes.
- NAM 215 files ~7.5 MB per forecast while NAM 218 files ~21 MB per forecast hour yields a net increase of 400 MB per model run.
GDAS Grids: 10-14 days notice following moratorium
- Add GDAS analysis grids ~50MB.
- This is a new data set, not currently available on TOC servers.
- NCEP will coordinate data delivery to TOC servers.
GFS Grids: 30 days pending availability
- Increase GFS 0.5 degree global grids in GRIB2 from 84 hours to 180 hours.
- The 0.5 degree GFS data has been available in CONDUIT from 0 to 84 hours since September 2004.
The extension of the number of forecast hours available at ~37 MB per forecast time will yield a net 1.3
GB increase per model run.
- Remove redundant GFS 1.0 degree global grids in GRIB1 from 0 to 180 hours at ~23 MB per forecast
time will yield a net 1.4 GB decrease per model run.
- NCEP plans to produce the 0.5 degree data set to 180 hours following the lifting of moratorium at a time to be determined.
RUC Grids: 60 days pending availability
- Replace RUC 252 (20km) GRIB1 grids with RUC 130 (13km) GRIB2 grids.
- NCEP plans to produce RUC output at 13km resolution following moratorium. Forecast hours to be
produced for the new data set still to be determined for net change in data volume.
Reliability and Timeliness of CONDUIT data
- Typical time to deliver data via LDM to relay sites is less than 30 seconds once the data is placed in the
queue of the host machine at NWS Telecommunications Operations Center.
- Upload of most files to LDM server occurs within 5 minutes of availability within NWS. Maximum
time to queue (45 minutes) occurs with 0Z and 12Z Ensemble due to large number of files to transfer to
LDM host machine and insert into product queue.
- Underlying network changes within NWS are expected to improve delivery time to LDM host.
- Current LDM hardware at NWS is nearing end of life. LDM has been used to distribute greater than
400GB per day between Europe and US using commodity equipment, demonstrating the ability to
deliver significantly greater quantities of data than CONDUIT currently delivers.
