Buoys now excluded on full import with version "c"

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Wally Mayo
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Location: Roanoke, VA
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Buoys now excluded on full import with version "c"

Post by Wally Mayo »

Tim,
Problem: Buoys/ships won't import in with a full ingest which includes surface metars and buoys. It will import buoys only if ingested separately (land metars always plot).

Check the following files. The first one is total surface metars with buoys that was "put together" with this command (after d'loading land metars and buoys):
ingest,f:\digatm\data\surf*.dat

http://www.weatherroanoke.com/fullmetars.txt

Somewhere between version 1.0q and 1.1c buoys stopped plotting with such a file. Strangely, if I strip out the non-buoys from that same file (so there are only buoys) the buoys WILL plot. This is that file:

http://www.weatherroanoke.com/buoys.txt

Similarly, if one just downloads a buoy file (i.e, from Albany) the buoys will plot. Something in the PROCESSING of the land metars "blocks" buoy plotting. Well, if done totally separately, I can do land metars, THEN buoys, and they will plot.
It is somehow the juxtaposition of both in the same processing, into one file, that "gums" it up.
(Of course, the reason to do both in same file is to make a plot that can be ANALYZED with ALL data).

Update: If I choose ALL in TIME SELECTION they will plot together, but ... you will notice ALL land and sea obs are 11Z in this file, so they should plot with the 1 hour selection .... they used to.
Roy Leep
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Location: Tampa, Florida
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Post by Roy Leep »

This is an important issue for us on the coast. I am ingesting them separetly and they are plotting but I often note that the time in the legend may be behind an hour. If we see it working once, we assume the data is there all along for analysis (if you are not plotting).

A small oversight in the DA2000, and again in the initial retrieval window, is that buoys report hourly!

By ingesting synop (I), metar, and buoys you get maximum coverage. I have not used the "surf" command. I was kind of hoping that RECCO would be added to the mix on this version too.

Let me know when you are happy with all this Wally.


Roy
Greg Fishel
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Joined: Mon Jul 05, 2004 5:02 pm

Buoy Data

Post by Greg Fishel »

Another issue is that when retrieving buoy data from Albany, the url used refers to the synoptic hour and not the current hour. Thus, at 14z, you download the 14z metars and the 12z buoys! I edited the URL so that it too was looking at the current hour, and the download went fine. But as has been noted before, the buoys don't plot when metars are downloaded along with them. The point of this note is to make everyone aware that you need to edit the URL for buoys, replacing the @S with @H in order to get the latest data. It sure would be nice to be able to plot metars and buoys together!
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