# Presentation: 215674

## Selected Cities Summary, Travelers Forecast, and the National Digital Forecast Database

- Matt Peroutka
- Meteorological Development Lab
- May 2005

## Overview

- Background
- Current Products and Process
- Ideas to Improve the Products and Process
- Character of the Day (One-word Daytime Forecasts; CoD)

## Background

- MDL was asked to develop techniques that  generate two tabular products from NDFD.
- Selected Cities Summary (SCS)
- Travelers Forecast (TVL)
- SCS and TVL are currently generated by NCEP using WFO input.

## Current Products and Process

## Sample Selected Cities Forecast

- SELECTED CITIES WEATHER SUMMARY AND FORECASTS...PART 1 OF 4
- NWS HYDROMETEOROLOGICAL PREDICTION CENTER CAMP SPRINGS MD
- 736 AM EST TUE NOV 09 2004
- TEMPERATURES INDICATE DAYTIME HIGH...NIGHTTIME LOW
- B INDICATES TEMPERATURES BELOW ZERO
- PRECIPITATION FOR 24 HOURS ENDING AT 7 AM EST
-                                 FORECAST        FORECAST
-                  MON...NOV 08   TUE....NOV 09   WED....NOV 10
- CITY             HI/LO   PCPN   WEA     HI/LO   WEA     HI/LO
- ABILENE TX       76  52         MOCLDY  67/55   CLOUDY  70/43
- AKRON CANTON     43  28         PTCLDY  41/27   PTCLDY  54/40
- ALBANY NY        45  23         PTCLDY  39/16   PTCLDY  42/32
- ALBUQUERQUE      72  53         MOCLDY  62/40   PTCLDY  59/38
- ALLENTOWN        49  28         PTCLDY  40/20   SUNNY   43/30
- AMARILLO         66  44         MOCLDY  67/45   PTCLDY  60/31
- ANCHORAGE        32  25   .05   WINDY   33/30   RAIN    43/35
- ASHEVILLE        68  38         SUNNY   55/30   SUNNY   52/33
- ATLANTA          69  47         SUNNY   62/38   PTCLDY  61/43
- ATLANTIC CITY    52  26         SUNNY   47/27   SUNNY   49/35
- AUSTIN           80  51         MOCLDY  74/57   MOCLDY  74/54
- BALTIMORE        50  31         SUNNY   48/29   SUNNY   49/29

## Sample Travelers Forecast

- TRAVELERS FORECAST TABLE...PART 1 OF 3
- NWS HYDROMETEOROLOGICAL PREDICTION CENTER CAMP SPRINGS MD
- 535 AM EST TUE NOV 09 2004
- TEMPERATURES INDICATE DAYTIME HIGH...NIGHTTIME LOW
- B INDICATES TEMPERATURES BELOW ZERO
-                 FORECAST        FORECAST
-                 TUE....NOV 09   WED....NOV 10
- CITY            WEA     HI/LO   WEA     HI/LO
- ALBANY NY       PTCLDY  39/16   PTCLDY  42/32
- ANCHORAGE       WINDY   33/30   RAIN    43/35
- ATLANTA         SUNNY   62/38   PTCLDY  61/43
- BILLINGS        PTCLDY  65/33   RNSNOW  40/19
- BOISE           FOG     42/36   MOCLDY  48/38
- BOSTON          FLRRYS  39/27   PTCLDY  43/35
- CHICAGO         SUNNY   54/42   PTCLDY  61/42
- COLUMBUS OH     SUNNY   47/31   PTCLDY  56/41
- DALLAS FT WORTH PTCLDY  72/55   MOCLDY  73/57
- DENVER          MISG    MM/MM   MISG    MM/MM
- DETROIT         PTCLDY  45/32   PTCLDY  58/42
- HONOLULU        PTCLDY  85/72   SUNNY   86/73

## Sample Coded Cities Forecast

**ABI BB 080/044 074/046 067 14000 **
**    ****EEEEE 047/066 052/068 045/057 038/056 0-12111111 **
**SJT BB 080/045 075/047 069 14000 **
**    ****EEEEE 049/067 053/070 045/059 039/057 0-12112111 **
**JCT BB 080/044 077/045 071 14000 **
**    ****EEEEE 051/069 052/072 047/062 041/059 0-12112211**

- Site ID

- CoD letters

- Max/Min Temperatures

- 2-digit Forecaster ID

- PoPs

## Comments on Current Products

- Very “old-school.”  I. e., capital letters, ellipses, columnar data.
- Seems to be time to reconsider the format and content of these products.
- Observation and forecast data combined.
- Column widths limit forecast to 2 days.

## Current Process for Generating SCS and TVL

- WFO

- WFO

- WFO

- Local Digital Forecast Database

- Local Digital Forecast Database

- Local Digital Forecast Database

- Product Generation

- Product Generation

- Product Generation

**CCF**

**CCF**

**CCF**

- Product Generation

- Observations

**TVL**

**SCS**

- CCF = Coded Cities Forecast
- SCS = Selected Cities Forecast
- TVL = Travelers Forecast

- Manual

- Manual

- Manual

- Manual

## Comments on Current Process

- Forecasters responsible for timely generation of CCFs.
- CoD is set at WFOs.
- CCF formatter chooses a value, based on grids.
- CCF algorithms vary from WFO to WFO.
- Forecaster can edit final product.
- Manual interventions at NCEP are problematic.

## Ideas to Improve the Products and the Process

- Introduce two new products
- XML City Observations
- XML City Forecasts
- Pursue “retirement” of CCF, TVL, and SCS products.
- CCF, TVL, and SCS could all be produced centrally from XML during transition.

## XML City Observations

- Produced twice daily by NCEP.
- Includes same observational data as SCS.
- MaxT/MinT/Pcpn for cities
- National High/Low
- Encoded in XML.
- Some manual input required at NCEP.

## XML City Forecasts 

- Produced hourly by NDFD Central Server.
- WFO-resolution data obtained from IFPS Service Backup data feed.
- MaxT/MinT/CoD for cities for all days in NDFD.
- Encoded in XML.

## Proposed Process for Generating XML City Products from NDFD

- NCEP

- WFO

- WFO

- WFO

- Local Digital Forecast Database

- Local Digital Forecast Database

- Local Digital Forecast Database

- Product Generation

- Observations

**XML City**** ****Forecasts**

**XML City Observations**

- Mosaic
- Grids

- NDFD

- Product Generation

- Manual

## What’s an XML?

- Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a standard for data exchange that is popular in WWW applications.
- Provides a flexible framework for encoding data.
- Can be read by human eyes, but generally is not used that way.
- Implemented successfully for NDFD WWW services.
- Very well supported by public-domain software.

## XML Sample

**<dwml xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" **
**      ****xmlns:xsi=“http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance”> **
**   ****<head>**
**      ****<product concise-name="time-series">**
**          ****<creation-date>2004-02-13T21:29:11Z</creation-date>**
**      ****</product>**
**      ****<source>**
**          ****<production-center>MDL</production-center>**
**      ****</source>**
**   ****</head>**
**   ****<data>**
**      ****<parameters>**
**         ****<temperature units="Fahrenheit">**
**            ****<value>45</value>**
**            ****<value>31</value>**
**            ****<value>29</value>**
**            ****<value>37</value>**
**            ****<value>41</value>**
**            ****<value>41</value>**
**            ****<value xsi:nil="true" />**
**         ****</temperature>**
**      ****</parameters>**
**   ****</data>**
**</dwml>**

## Character of the Day

- Current NWSI 10-503 provides little guidance; maximizes forecaster judgment.
- Producing summary forecasts from NDFD requires a shift away from WFO control.

## Character of the Day Issues

- Time:  Daytime definition
- Code set:  26 letters vs. 250 icons
- Weather element precedence:
- Threshold for wet/dry.
- Threshold for windy.
- Very hot/cold.

## Summary

- SCS, TVL, and CCF products deliver useful data in an outdated format.
- XML offers a promising alternative.
- More data
- More flexible format
- More streamlined process
- Centralized production of new products and legacy products is do-able.
- Encoding character of the day raises issues.