Recent Digital Atmosphere changes V3.20 (Oct 2019) to V3.50a (Jun 2023) The upgrade activity was erratic during this period. The last public version before June 2023 was the V3.32 (Apr 2021) and the last version that provided update notifications was V3.20 (Oct 2019). This listing will help provide information on what was changed. This listing is in reverse chronological order. DA5 2022 V3.50a Released 2023-06-06 * IMPORTED DATA: Double instances of existing observational data are eliminated during data import. * Encapsulates all unreleased changes below. DA5 2022 V3.50 Completed 2023-01-23 (special addition request) * PLOTTING/ANALYSIS: Tendency for 1, 3, 6, and 12 hours is available if a surface dataset for two different times is imported. See below for specifics. * PLOTTING/ANALYSIS: Surface pressure change added (increase blue, decrease red; time intervals of 1hr, 3hr, 6hr & 12hr) * PLOTTING/ANALYSIS: Surface dewpoint change added (increase green, decrease brown; time intervals of 1hr, 3hr, 6hr & 12hr) * PLOTTING/ANALYSIS: Surface temperature change added (increase red, decrease blue; intervals of 1hr, 3hr, 6hr & 12hr) * PLOTTING/ANALYSIS: Dewpoint depression analysis for surface, 850, 700 and 500mb (5 to 0 only, green in color) * PLOTTING/ANALYSIS: Height change 850, 700 and 500mb (decrease red, increase blue; intervals 12 and 24hr) * Other files changed are DIGATMOS.MNU (to add in delta analysis options) and LANGUAGE.TXT (new chart names) * The default OUTPUT.S00 etc files have been restructed and older versions are not compatible. DA5 2022 V3.41 Unreleased pending more work - 2023-01-07 Work was frozen at this point as V3.41, there are no changes from V3.40 to V3.41. DA5 2022 V3.40 Unreleased pending more work - Summer 2022 * RADAR: Adjusted radar sources. (7/20/22) * ANALYSIS: Added in an experimental module to plot maximum temperatures (Data > Max/Min temperatures in set). This does not use the coded max/min temperature data but is determined by parsing all observations, and requires all available data to be ingested for all times. (7/20/22) * SCRIPTING: Projection parameter must be specified at the beginning of MAKE command. Previous scripts which use the MAKE command can be changed simply by changing instances of “MAKE,” to “MAKE,1,”. (4/20/22) * MAPPING: Added new options for plotting County Names, added overlay radar polygons, fixed digatmos.cxt to correct misplaced county labels and eliminate low level Virginia county names. (4/19/22) * ANALYSIS: Fixed problem SDVC in digatmos.grf which was pulling in data from field 0 instead of 1 in SDVC. (7/9/21) * IMPORT: Added support for retrieving basic WT-Meso data from NWSTG Lubbock bulletins, since the WT-Meso data has been pulled from public access and made proprietary. (5/20/21) * MAPPING:: Fixed planetary map problem along 180 meridian (checking for -9999 null values, not just 9999). 20201030: Fixed station plots to make sure plots adhere to the specified time range; some plots had been slipping through due to changes in station plot display prioritization. (12/11/20) DA5 2021 V3.34 Unreleased pending more work - April 2022 * Updated version from 2021 V3.33 to 2022 V3.34 in combination with fix for sounding File Not Found error. The sounding module was still accessing location-identifier-list.csv. This V3.34 was released to the user requesting a fix but I was not able to complete posting the update publicly. (4/4/22) DA5 2021 V3.33 GRIB and Fleetcode improvements Released 2021-07? * GRIB: Added more GRIB products, and updated the links to reflect changes to the GFS data that caused data to not be found. * GRIB: Changed behavior of GRIB form to not reset the form. This allows user to more easily modify successive GRIB downloads. * GRIB: Added GRIBGRID display command so users can see the extent of the available data. * GRIB: Sea level pressure command corrected to SDVC=0:100 instead of SDVC=1:100, which caused it to pass the wrong field to the mathematical calculations and not plot. * GRIB: Added thickness product from CMC GEM and a thickness display command in the DIGATMOS.GRF file. * FLEETCODE: Added antialiased lines to Fleetcode isopleth plotting. These do not draw entirely correctly as the spline segments have to be generated in small steps, but it does improve the look slightly. * PLOTTING OF TEMPERATURE EXTREMES ADDED: Located under Data > WPC Temperature Records. DA5 2021 V3.32 - “Fleetcode Update” Released 2021-04-19 * IAC/FLEET PLOTTING: Barb/pip fronts have been restored based on testing. * IAC/FLEET PLOTTING: User is now provided the choice of either barb/pip or non-barb/pip in the Data > Fleetcode menu option. The latter should be selected if the fronts are believed to not be pointing the right direction. The WMO code format does not explicitly provide for frontal direction, so this uses the left/right hand rules (relative to the line) that ASXX21 EGRR seems to be following. * IAC/FLEET PLOTTING: Problems with spurious and broken fronts and isopleths have been resolved. It occurred when nonstandard line spacings existed in the source Fleetcode bulletin, causing the cleaned-up bulletin to get rebuilt incorrectly. The ingest now ignores null lines. * IAC/FLEET PLOTTING: Non-barbed stationary front type used in IAC/FLEET plots changed to a more frequent spacing so as to reduce visual confusion with cold and warm fronts. * IAC/FLEET PLOTTING: Troughs and waves in IAC/FLEET now use a more fine-grained dash line so as to stand out from isobars. * IAC/FLEET PLOTTING: Isobar labels have been shifted upward 7 pixels so as to not be obscured by the line. DA5 2021 V3.31 Released 2021-04-13 * Baseline release for spring 2021 for new round of maintenance. Foremost issue is fixing reports of FLEET code diagnostic plot issues. If there are bugs at this point with FLEET we will issue V3.31a, V3.31b, etc. * Distributables now released as ZIPs due to reports of Microsoft Edge generating false security notifications when EXE is run from the browser (likely this is Microsoft trying to strongarm developers into buying code signing certifications). DA5 2020 V3.30 Released 2020-08-14 (unreleased dev version started as V3.21/V3.22a beginning 2019-11) * Sporadic download problems are known to exist since V3.20. This manifests itself as downloads “skipping” about 1 to 5% of the time (surface data, SPC data, etc) producing an empty download file. V3.30 uses the same download code base as V3.20 and I actually reverted some unreleased inhouse changes back to a 2/27/19 code set. I will be subcontracting this out for the next version so it’s finally fixed. Feedback from our users about this issue, negative or positive, is requested; email tim.vasquez@weathergraphics.com. It would be helpful to know how often you see this program, along with your Windows version, Dig Atm version (to confirm which one), and any other details. (2020-08-14) * Included a starter planetary map in the AppData \planetary subdirectory. (2020-08) * Identifiers have been brought current through July 2020 (August 2020 for FAA identifiers). (2020-08) * File >Station Tables > Import MLID has been adjusted to support the adjusted MLID table format beginning August 2019, while providing backward compatability with the old MLID structure. The code now uses the header rows to identify the correct columns. (2020-08) * Exported station listings are now provided with the installer, located in the Application Data directory (see Help > About) under station-list-icao.txt and station-list-wmo.txt. These will confirm whether a station is included. They are automatically regenerated if a new MLID file is imported. (2020-08) * Installer is packaged with a default US topographic map produced by the planetary map set. (2020-08-14) * Default first-run app width has been widened. (2020-08-14) * Pro vs. Pro Patch builds have been eliminated. Defense Mapping Agency map tiles have been pushed out to a separate optional map add-on, and this will shrink the Professional builds to the same size as Standard builds and the installer script. (2020-08) * Plotting of SPC Storm Reports (live from SPC) is available. This is accomplished in Data > SPC Storm Reports. The archive goes back to June 1, 1999 and covers everything up to today’s date, often with live data. (2020-08) * GRIB2 support has been added. This is a preliminary capability that will be improved once I evaluate it and decide further how to implement it. This was done by removing the old GRIB1 code base and interface, and added a File > Import GRIB Data panel which encapsulates all GRIB display. Automated scripting of GRIB data is not yet available, and it will be some time before it can be developed. (2020-06-24) * Removed code that sets window state on startup (maximized, normal) as this was causing errors on startup. (2020-06-24) * Startup forces the number of charts on startup to at least 1 (cc=0 in temp.idx), as problems are sometimes introduced by a corrupted window state and saved to temp.idx as cc=-1. (2020-06-24) * Analysis menu paints with correct styling now. (2020-05) * Fixed the DIGATMOS.RUL file so that the DELETE action does not have to be spelled specifically as DEL, now DELETE will also work. This amibiguity caused some problems where users previously added a station to be flagged and nothing happened. (2020-05) * Added extended frontal analysis support (2020-03-31) * New frontal support requires STY files must now contain an ‘ams’ ‘bnd’ and ‘dry’ entry for air mass, boundaries, and drylines, respectively, to work properly. These have been updated in all internal and distribution versions, with distribution versions set to use standard Verdana fonts. By accepting the new style files with the installer, users will receive the new changes. Users who continue to use older style files without adding these lines may receive minor errors or unusually formatted text when attempting to plot air mass markings, drylines, or boundaries. Users who wish to manually edit their existing files can copy/paste the default lines below. (2020-05) ams Air mass markings 064-064-064 36 Verdana dry Drylines 136-045-023 3 bnd Boundaries 000-000-000 3 * Working to fix graticule for hurricane chart and adapt anti-aliasing for graticule. * Updating Climatology > Hurricane plots and adding frequency. Will need to switch out old hurricane files for new ones. * User may specify the data directory in Preferences > General. This is now stored in the registry and is no longer hardcoded as WorkingDirectory+’data\’. Any bugs related to missing data during data import may be associated with this change. * Removed new bug caused by changes in previous version in which ship synoptic winds were always assumed to be in m/s. * Wind barb plotting adjusted to vary line width according to station model scale.