Oops, sorry…yes, it is reading STNDB.USER correctly!
Gilbert Sebenste
Meteorology Support Analyst
[cid:image001.png@01DCE92A.99EA0020]
From: Becky Schaffer <beckys@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, May 21, 2026 2:01 PM
To: Sebenste, Gilbert <sebensteg@xxxxxxx>; 'Mike Zuranski'
<zuranski.wx@xxxxxxxxx>
Cc: mcidas-x@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [mcidas-x] [External] Re: How can I add new stations to the
surface station database?
Hi Gilbert,
Do you have everything you need now? Is it reading STNDB.USER correctly? We
do have an updated version of STNDB.CORE from December 2025, if that will help.
Becky
On 5/19/2026 10:09 PM, Sebenste, Gilbert wrote:
OK. I did that, and discovered that I had nearly 200 missing stations in the
database. In /home/mcidas/data, I see:
-rwxrwxr-x 2 mcidas mcidas 7094900 Dec 31 2022 STNDB.CORE*
And yet, I had a bunch missing from 2017-2026…and probably further back, that I
put in my
/home/mcidas/workdata/STNDB.USER. That’s odd, since it was supposedly updated
in 2022 (shrug).
Gilbert Sebenste
Meteorology Support Analyst
[cid:image001.png@01DCE92A.99EA0020]
From: Mike Zuranski <zuranski.wx@xxxxxxxxx><mailto:zuranski.wx@xxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Monday, May 18, 2026 8:37 PM
To: Sebenste, Gilbert <sebensteg@xxxxxxx><mailto:sebensteg@xxxxxxx>
Cc: mcidas-x@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:mcidas-x@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [External] Re: [mcidas-x] How can I add new stations to the surface
station database?
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Hi Gilbert,
From the McIDAS-X docs:
STNPLOT uses the station database files STNDB.CORE, STNDB.SITE and STNDB.USER.
The .CORE file is supplied with McIDAS-X and should not be modified. The .USER
file overrides the .SITE file, which overrides the .CORE file. This order of
precedence allows you or your site to change existing stations and/or add new
stations in your .USER or .SITE file.
To create a .USER or .SITE file, first run a command similar to the following
to create the file in the first writable MCPATH directory.
STNLIST KMSN FORM=USER DEV=T STNDB.USER A
The file contains one long line that defines the data for station KMSN. An
equal sign (=) denotes the value of each of the 10 fields (IDN, ID, LATLON,
ULATLON, ELE, UELE, ST, CO, NAME, and DATATYPE). Replace the values in the KMSN
entry with those for your station and add lines as needed for additional
stations. Entries do not have to include all ten fields. The required fields
are LATLON and at least one of the following: ID, IDN, USERID. Other fields
like CO, ST and NAME are useful but not required. Note that you must follow the
one-entry-per-line format for all stations in your .USER and .SITE files. Line
breaks are not permitted.
https://www.ssec.wisc.edu/mcidas/doc/users_guide/current/stnplot.html
That is just from one cursory search. The long and short of it is you do not
edit the .CORE file, you create a .SITE and/or a .USER file.
Hope this helps,
-Mike
On Mon, May 18, 2026 at 8:29 PM Sebenste, Gilbert
<sebensteg@xxxxxxx<mailto:sebensteg@xxxxxxx>> wrote:
Good evening everyone,
STNDB.CORE is a binary file, and can’t be updated with new stations. Is there
another file I can use to add to the new stations that have come online since
early 2024?
Gilbert Sebenste
Meteorology Support Analyst
[cid:image001.png@01DCE92A.99EA0020]
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- Mike Zuranski
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