The HIWPP Open Data Initiative's first Users' Meeting will be held on Thursday, September 10th, from 1:00 to 3:00 pm Eastern Daylight Time. This will be a virtual meeting hosted via GoToMeeting.

The High Impact Weather Prediction Project (HIWPP) is a collaboration between a dozen or more organizations led by the NOAA Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (OAR) Earth System Research Laboratory (ESRL) and the OAR/Office of Weather and Air Quality. Funded as part of the Hurricane Sandy Disaster Relief Supplemental Appropriations, the project aims to improve near term (from “now” to several weeks or months in the future) prediction of dangerous weather events including hurricanes, floods, and blizzards.

National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) Global Forecast System (GFS) model output with 0.25-degree resolution will be added to the Internet Data Distribution (IDD) CONDUIT data stream on July 28, 2015.

Update: GFS 0.25-degree output is now available via the CONDUIT data stream.

NCEP began producing the GFS model output with a 0.25-degree resolution for use in weather forecasting operations in January, 2015. Unidata Program Center staff have tested the 0.25-degree GFS model output internally and have been working with operators of top-level IDD relay sites to ensure that they have the capacity to handle the increased data volume associated with this new data stream. The approximate volume of the 0.25-degree GFS model output is 20 GB per model run, four times each day. For comparison, all of the current GFS model output delivered via CONDUIT (GFS 0.5-degree, 1-degree, and 2.5-degree) total approximately 5 GB per model run, four times each day.

The High Impact Weather Prediction Project (HIWPP) team has announced that output from the experimental, high-resolution NAVGEM model has been added to the HIWPP Open Data Initiative Real-time Data service.

Unidata's Motherlode demonstration server is currently in service. The machine was adversely affected by a power problem that necessitated the replacement of its power controller.

While Motherlode has been back in service since Saturday, we are still diagnosing some remaining issues that appear to have resulted from the original hardware problem. As a result, we are not yet ready to give the server a clean bill of health, and advise the community that the machine may experience additional down-time in the coming days.

We regret any inconvenience caused by interruptions in access to the demonstration server. Thank you for your patience while we finish resolving the hardware issues.

Shortly before 8 pm MDT on April 4, Unidata's Motherlode demonstration server experienced a hardware problem and stopped responding. Persistent problems have thus far prevented the machine from being returned to service.

Unidata understands that community members routinely access a variety of services provided by the Motherlode server, and Program Center staff are working to provide alternatives. Users are advised to use the services Motherlode provies (such as the THREDDS Data Server via thredds.ucar.edu and the ADDE via adde.ucar.edu) on other “Motherlode-class” machines operating in the Unidata community. Options include:

• atm.ucar.edu
• idd.ssec.wisc.edu
• lead.unidata.ucar.edu
• weather.rsmas.miami.edu

Program center staff will provide updates via the relevant community e-mail lists and this forum as information becomes available. We apologize for the inconvenience this outage may be causing.