GEMPAK Online Tutorial > NPROGS > NMAP2 > NMAP Examples
9.0.15.1 NMAP Product Generation
Issuing A Watch Box
This exercise will show how to create a watch box product, and generate
the bulletins which are carried on the NOAAPORT data stream. Of course, here
we aren't dissiminating any of the products, but it does allow laboratory
students to consider data the same way as operational forecasters would.
- Using a background of supportive fields (such as radar and satellite
imagery as shown below), select the Watch Attributes from the
Watch classes palette. The underlying data may be animated,
or hidden in order to facilitate the drawing palette tools selected.
- Select the orientation (North/South, East/West, Either-Side-Of-Line)
of the watch box. Then, position the mouse pointer to the start of the
line which will form the axis of the box and click mouse button 1 (left).
Move the cursor to the ending point and click the left button to finish
the box. Modify the width and extent of the box afterwards by clicking
on the box to provide vertex drag points.
- Create the county lists for each box from the Watch Specifications
and County List dialog that appears when each watch box is clicked on.
Click on Apply to commit the settings.
- Issue the watches using the PROD class Watch Format.
When the dialog box appears, click on the watch box that the products will be
issued for (here we will deal with the box in morthern Minnesota).
Fill in the requested information in the table making modifications to defaults
as necessary. This is watch number 1 for us. You can configure your own lab
class of forecaster names in $GEMTBL/config/forecasters.tbl (here we'll use SYNLAB001).
Apply the changes and continue on to save the files.
- After saving, the following files are created in your working directory:
ww0001.txt Information about the watch box
ww0001.vgf VGF format graphic of the watch box
WW0001.AWN WWUS40 KWNS Aviavtion Watch notification
WW0001.PWN WWUS09 KWNS Public watch notification
WW0001.SAW WWUS40 KMKC Watch box coordinates
WW0001.SEL WWUS09 KMKC Severe Local Storms notification
WW0001.SEV WWUS50 KMKC Watch box status message
WW0001.WOU WOUS5x KWNS Watch box outline, counties list
WW0001.WCL NWUS6x KNWS Watch Coordination list.
- You can issue a watch box update, and nibble away parts of the box that are no
longer under threat. To issue an update, select a watch box that has previously been
issued. Here we will continue the watch box for eastern North Dakota in the graphic
that was previously issued as watch #999. Select the Watch object for the
continuing line, then click on the watch to be updated.
- To issue the update, select the PROD class object Watch Status
and click on the appropriate watch box. Again modify the fields as appropriate.
You will be prompted for the Watch Status Message file name to be created for
the WWUS08 product.
- Finally, we can verify our results by overlaying the vgf files created with
the warnings that were actually issued and decoded with DCWARN.
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