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For those really interested, the TIF files are on the NWS web site and you can cross reference this to the FTP files. http://weather.noaa.gov/fax/nwsfax.shtml The FTP files have a WMO header like name convention. For example (all with .TIF extensions), here are some common ones: QAUA00 - radar summaries (24/day) QYAA00 - surface analyses (8/day) QGUA00 - weather depictions (8/day) QTTA00 - max temp QTTA01 - min temp QETA00 - 24 hr precip QSTA00 - snow cover * most of these are twice a day PGBE99 - 12, 24 hr sig wx, sfc prog QHUQ00 - 36, 48 hr sfc prog and description QHUA17 - 200 mb analysis QHUA25 - 250 mb analysis QHUA15, QMUA15 - 300 mb analysis (diff chart for 0 and 12) QHTA11 - 500 mb analysis QHTA07 - 700 mb analysis QHUA04 - 850 mb analysis QTTR00 - NGM MOS POP forecast QTTE00 - NGM max/min forecast * once a day PGUE00 - day 1,2 convective outlook QTMI01 - day 3-4 pop anom, day 3 temp anom QTMI00 - day 4-5 temp anom QPUT88 - 6-10 day prog * Multipanel that need to be put together, twice a day QHUA89,88 - LI, prec water, frz lvl, mn RH 4 panel QHUA71,70 - NGM 0 hr 4 panel QHUE71,70 - NGM 12 hr 4 panel QHUI71,70 - NGM 24 hr 4 panel QHUM71,70 - NGM 36 hr 4 panel QHUQ71,70 - NGM 48 hr 4 panel QHUM86,85 - NGM 850 48 hr 4 panel I take these charts and use ImageMagick's convert and montage to put them together and then output PNG. I also rotate them 180 degrees for viewing on a screen with something like xv. For download, I wrote FTP code in Perl to do the hard work. It downloads the directory listing, decodes the dates to determine which chart has changed since the last check. Then I download the chart and do the post processing. I won't give away all my secrets but for those who want to do the legwork, everything you need is there! BTW, that NWS page covers about 90% of all current Difax charts. NWs has told me that this will continue to be there and that they are updating the hardware on this system. They will give priority use to some customers such as commercial data providers and maybe one or two Unidata sites (check with the NWS contact listed on bottom of web page). So it may be a good idea for one or two universities to handle most of the load and distribute it through IDD. When they upgrade and provide priority service, Unidata won't be bundled into the low priority group. Good luck! ________________________________________________________ Daniel Vietor Mail: devo@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Unisys Corp Title: Engineer/Meteorologist 221 Gale Lane Phone: 610-925-5206 Kennett Square PA 19348 Fax: 610-925-5215
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