GEMPAK Manual | Programs


DCCSIG

    DCCSIG decodes convective sigmet and convective outlook reports
    from a real-time data feed, or from a file fed to the program 
    through standard input, and writes the data to an ASCII file.  The 
    program is controlled by inputs to the command line.

    The inputs are program options and the output file name or template.
    For example, for real-time data feeds:
    
	dccsig [options] output_file

    If running the program interactively with standard input, the -c
    option must be used.  The input file must also be specified.
    For example:

	dccsig -c YYMMDD/HHNN [other_options] output_file < input_file
    
    A template may be used to specify the output file name.  The file
    name template uses the date and time of the bulletin or report
    to replace the following characters.

	YYYY or YY	Year with or without the century
	MM		Month number
	DD		Day
	HH		Hour
	NN		Minute


     The format of the output ASCII file is as follows:

     |Type|Start_time|End_time|Sequence ID|Intensity|Direction|
           Speed|Flt_lvl_1|Flt_lvl_2|Distance|Correction_flag
	     Lat1    Lon1
	     Lat2    Lon2
	     Lat3    Lon3
	       .       .
	       .       .
	       .       .

     (Note that the first two lines shown above appear as a single
     line in the output file.)
     Where: Type is AR (area), LN (line), IS (isolated area), 
 	   	CS ( nil convective sigmet ),  OL (outlook) 
	    Start_time and End_time are full GEMPAK date/time strings
	    Sequence ID is composed of the sequence number and a region
	    Intensity is DMSHG (weakening), DSIPTG (ending)
		INTSFYG (strengthening), DVLPG (beginning/growing) 
	    Direction is in tens of degrees
	    Speed is in knots
	    Flt_lvl_1 and Flt_lvl_2 are the flight levels
	    Distance is the Distance or Area diameter of the area or line
	    Correction_flag is a flag indicating a cancellation (0 or 1)

     Extra spaces may appear anywhere in this line of information,
     except in the first character position.  The first character must
     be a bar (|).

     The latitude and longitude values are read using the FORTRAN
     format (2F9.2).  The number of points may vary.

     Nil convective sigmets and convective outlook reports are decoded and
     are indicated in the decoded files by assigning the region id as: '0E', 
     '0C' or '0W' for both convective sigmets and convective outlooks. Only 
     convective sigmets use 'CS' as the type identifier to further indicate
     a nil issuance for a region.  Also, there is no latitude or longitude 
     information following the decoded nil issuance.