From: Tom Priddy, UK Ag. Weather Center
Excellent job, Pat and Ken. UK is doing something similar but using the AFM's.
The AFM is a county by county average......we currently have 18 states
available in east U.S. wwwagwx.ca.uky.edu
scroll down to the U.S. map to select state....then select county. We just finished the
routines for pot evapotranspriation. Additional "windows of opprotunities" for
spraying conditions, drying conditions, livestock heat and cold stress, tobacco
bulking/handling and adding dew duration/quantity and frost. Not all WFO's are sending
out AFM's ....if they did.....we could provide agriculture, lawn and garden forecast and
advisories for every county in the nation.
I would like to know more about how you did this for every county. There are
some huge holes in agricultural sectors of the U.S.
-----Original Message-----
From: "Ken Waters" <Ken.Waters@xxxxxxxx>
To: "pfranci@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx" <pfranci@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Wed, 12 Oct 2005 04:30:03 -1000
Subject: Re: NDFD PFM's
Pat,
The bottom line here is that PFMs are not produced for every zone. The
locations are selected primarily for verification purposes and therefore
often coincide with the location of an ASOS or METAR site. For more
info on PFMs take a look at:
http://www.crh.noaa.gov/oax/digital_guide.shtml.
There is no stipulation that in order to be operational each zone must
have a PFM. Rather, the forecast grids need to be a "live" product,
updated regularly. At certain times the text products such as zones
(ZFP) and the PFM are created from the grids through the use of
formatters and then are transmitted. Also, the schedule of when the PFM
is produced is not set in stone. Normally it's done twice a day but it
could be often, and at different times.
Another way to do what you are wanting would be to basically design your
own "PFM" by downloading the grids at a regular interval and extract
what you need from them at the points you want using the "degrib"
utility (see: http://www.nws.noaa.gov/mdl/NDFD_GRIB2Decoder/index.php).
I know that would be a lot of work but at least it would accomplish what
you are trying to do.
Regards,
Ken
