-------- Original Message --------
777
NOUS41 KWBC 072100
PNSWSH
Technical Implementation Notice 11-04
National Weather Service Headquarters Washington DC
400 PM EST Mon Feb 7 2011
TO: Subscribers:
-Family of Services
-NOAA Weather Wire Service
-Emergency Managers Weather Information Network
-NOAAPORT
Other NWS Partners and Employees
FROM: Kevin Schrab
Chief, Observing Services Division
Office of Climate, Water, and Weather Services
SUBJECT: Second Quarter 2011 Dates for Termination of Automated
Radiotheodolite Tracking (ART) and Radio Direction
Finding Radiosondes (RDF) with Installation of
Radiosonde Replacement Systems (RRS)
Three Upper Air (UA) sites are scheduled to receive RRS Upgrades
in the next 2 months in 2011:
STATION NAME WMO # STN ID OUTAGE DATES
PAGO PAGO 91765 NSTU 08 Feb 2011
KOROR 91408 PTRO 09 Mar 2011
YAP 91413 PTYA 20 Mar 2011
These UA sites may be out of service for as long as 10 days.
When the NWS UA observations resume, the RRS will be gathering
meteorological data from Global Positioning System (GPS)
radiosondes.
The NWS describes the RRS release point location with the
National Geodetic Survey (NGS) OPUS solution. This is a datum
combination that relies on North American Datum of 1983 (NAD83)
for latitude and longitude whereas the release point elevation
is based on North American Vertical Datum 1988 (NAVD88) with the
GEOID03 model. By contrast the GPS radiosonde flight information
of latitude and longitude and altitude will rely on the world
geodetic system of 1984 (WGS84) standard.
Parts of the UA coded messages will be significantly longer with
RRS conversion. NWS has coordinated with its partners on the
longer length of these messages.
The format of the messages will be the same WMO format for coded
UA messages used with the MicroArt legacy system. The number of
levels in the coded messages will be two to three times greater
for the TTBB and TTDD. As a result two categories of AWIPS text
products will increase in size: SGL and ABV. The number of
levels in the TTAA, TTCC, PPBB and PPDD parts will be relatively
unchanged. These changes reflect updated coding practices and
higher resolution level selection criteria. The maximum size
limits of the parts of the coded messages are as follows:
TTAA: 15 Levels
TTCC: 10 Levels
TTBB: 135 Levels
TTDD: 40 Levels
PPBB: 40 Levels
PPDD: 40 Levels
In addition the 31313 message indicator associated with various
parts of the message will be included with each part of the
thermodynamic message parts.
For additional information on the message requirements, please
see the WMO 306 Manual on Codes (International Codes): Volume
I.1 Part A - Alphanumeric Codes and Volume II Regional Codes and
National Coding Practices. Users can find information on the
levels selection criteria used in NWS coding software online at:
http://www.ua.nws.noaa.gov
Although the effective date for this notice is less than the
30-days advised in 10-1805, this notice will be sufficient to
inform users of the UA service outage at Pago Pago in American
Samoa. This site is managed by a Weather Service Office that is
staffed 24-hours a day and the outage during typhoon season is
considered low risk.
If you have questions or feedback, please contact:
Ivan Navarro
Engineering and Acquisition Branch (OPS11)
National Weather Service
1325 East West Highway
Silver Spring, Maryland 20910
301-713-1841 Ext. 123
Ivan.Navarro@xxxxxxxx
NWS National Technical Implementation notices are online:
http://www.weather.gov/os/notif.htm
$$