DIGITAL ATMOSPHERE V1.1J - released

[Tim Vasquez]

I have finally gotten some time to work on Digital Atmosphere. This probably doesn't address all the pending issues, but it's a start. We are currently living in an apartment in Palestine, Texas and my spare time is being spent building a 2-story house singlehandedly (I kid you not) on some rural acreage, as well as tending to our family.

This is why I have not been on the forums much. I do recommend E-mail for important support, as the forum takes a back seat to E-mail requests, orders, and so forth. However the forum is better for getting a wide variety of suggestions and tricks.

Now the news...

V1.1j has been released this evening. It is a free upgrade for all Workstation version owners.

Standard users may download the patch (from V1.1h on) or full version at:
http://www.weathergraphics.com/dl

Professional users, use your previous patch instructions or contact me.

Listed below are some of the features in this new version. As
always, timely feedback is appreciated.

Thanks!

Tim Vasquez
Weather Graphics

* Reinstated WinHelp context-sensitive help.

* Radar image import supported to allow Australian, Canadian,
Mexican, and other radar data to be ingested. Added Radar >
Import Radar Images module. Adds digatmos.rdy as part of this
build.

* Archived data support updated. Updated File > Get Archived
Data to use flexible ZIP structures used by Weather Graphics
Surface Archives and Upper Archives sets.

* Fixed graphics problem in hurricane track module. A line
style was omitted from earlier versions which sometimes caused
the hurricane forecast symbols to not be plotted.

* Added IMPORTRADAR command to script. See Scripting Commands.

* Added SPAWN command to script. See Scripting Commands.

* Added RADARSAVE to script. See Scripting Commands.

* Added HURRICANE to script. See Scripting Commands.

* Added HURRMODEL to script. See Scripting Commands.

* Added FONTTRUETYPE to script. See Scripting Commands.

* Added FONTNCEP to script. See Scripting Commands.

* Added SFCPLOTMODEL to script. See Scripting Commands.

* Extensive changes to METAR parsing to improve reliability,
especially of additive data. One change is that altimeter
settings are used to correctly resolve sea level pressures
to the 900 or 1000 range (1000 range if sea level pressure
figure is 000-599 and sea level pressure exceeds 29.00
inches), and if unavailable, the threshold value from
Preferences > Meteorological is used.

* Added provision for decoding 6-hr maximum and minimum
temperatures from U.S. METAR reports (1sxxx 2snnn groups)
(these are sent out at 00, 06, 12, 18Z). The 24-hr maximum
and minimum temperatures are sent at local midnight.
Plottable parameters added to File > Preferences > Station
Plots.

* Added all maximum/temperature quantities to Quality
Control panel. In previous versions, maximum and minimum
temperature could not be QC'd.

* Fixed problem with precipitation plots (English units)
with quanties too high by a magnitude of 1.

* Added information on analysis base parameters for
precipitation into documentation (Analysis Scripting section).

* Added maximum and minimum temperature to analysis
parameters (TX24, TN24, TX06, TN06).

* Updated the Internet resource table to produce Edition 5.
Weeded UCAR out of the Internet resource table; appeared
to be no data there. Also fixed the FSU resources with
the change from http://www.met.fsu.edu to dweb.met.fsu.edu.

* Fixed tutorial in documentation.

* Other minor enhancements.

[Weasel]

Cool update!

The zip extractor for archived data works like a charm:)

Max and min temps are also a welcome addition.

The Mexican radar coverage is also rather handy...even though I still can't use the images on some basemaps. Guess I'll just have to switch back and forth between maps...or run DA WS on two computers when the tropics have something good to look at down that way:) At least I don't have to fire up other software to retrieve the images anymore!

Thanks for the update!

Pat

[PhilLayton]

Hi Tim,

Thanks for the update.

All METAR plots now have a gust of '0' on when there are none reported. Is it possible to have this removed again, and only plot when a gust is included in the metar ?

Any chance of a fix to the visibility in the Metars in Metres (currently plots as M) .

Thanks

Phil

[Tim Vasquez]

V1.1j1 will be released tonight... just briefly these changes have been accomplished so far:
- Fixed the radar graphical mess problem ("digatmos.rdz not found" for some users).
- Fixed JTWC West Pacific typhoon message importing.
- Fixed frontal bulletins import (NCEP changed terminator from NNNN to $$, am accepting both as terminators)
- Fixed null gusts plotting from METAR as G 0
- Removed spaces within gust plot ("G 14" now plots as "G14").
- Changed UK sferics in resources table

Tim

[texsky]

Tim,

Here's the proper link for UCAR radiosonde data...http://www.rap.ucar.edu/weather/upper/Current.rawins

Bob