From: ngs@nyquist.bellcore.com (Ned Stoffel 21374)
Newsgroups: rec.windsurfing
Subject: Re: wxmap update
Date: 7 Oct 92 14:35:19 GMT
Reply-To: ngs@nyquist.bellcore.com
Organization: Network Technology Research Lab, Bellcore

In article <JACKG.92Oct6214339@capella.ucsb.edu>, jackg@bears.ucsb.edu (Jack Greenbaum) writes:

|> 
|> The following is from the file WX/WX-TALK.DOC on vmd.cso.uiuc.edu:
|> 
|>     The surface weather maps and upper air maps are generated by the WXMAP
|>     program, written by Charley Kline of the University of Illinois. The
|>     WXMAP program runs under the X window system. It can produce weather
|>     maps for any part of the country, showing any subset of what you see in
|>     the GIF file. It can display many more reporting stations than what
|>     appears in the maps; most are suppressed in order to keep that
|>     relatively small image legible.
|> 
|>     Wxmap gets the information it needs to produce the map from "packages"
|>     which are downloaded over the network. The "packages" are the result of
|>     a data reduction run which happens twice hourly on an IBM S/6000. The
|>     data reduction runs read "raw" weather data off the Alden/Zephyr
|>     Domestic Data Plus (DD+) weather feed, a 4800bps teletype circuit which
|>     is a merging of the NWS public products circuit and the NMC's domestic
|>     coded data circuit.
|> 
|>     Locally written server software running on a Microvax III sucks in the
|>     DD+ feed and breaks it down into disk files for each product. The data
|>     reduction runs then access these products via NFS and produce the
|>     "packages" which wxmap then uses to draw the maps.
|> 
|>     Unfortunately, due to contractual obligations with Alden/Zephyr, the
|>     packages can't leave the University of Illinois campus, since they are
|>     deemed by Zephyr to be too close to the raw data on the feed itself.
|>     Unless a site has its own DD+ contract with Alden, all that can be
|>     released are "value-addeds", like the WXMAP GIFs available on vmd.
|> 
|> It must be that Bellcore has a similar comercial feed, or has some type
|> of access to the UIUC net.

You are apparently right. We at Bellcore have an expanded version of 
wxmap and a feed for the raw weather data which is apparently not
accessible from the outside world. Venky (who hacked out our
improved version of wxmap) also modified the server that we are
using at Bellcore. Unless we can locate a modified server which
is accessible to the outside world, it will not do much good for me to
send executables or the source code to anyone outside Bellcore.

I know that preformatted gifs are available from various sites, so
one alternative would be for someone to post a script file that
would automatically retrieve the latest one with the wind speeds,
isobars, and radar map. I don't know if there are gifs generated
on a regular basis with this particular set of
windsurfing-relavant info plotted. I imagine this would generate a lot
more traffic on the net if everyone started downloading gifs
frequently.

If I knew how to do it, I would generate some jpeg files with the
hourly map updates using the Bellcore wxmap and archive them somewhere
that everyone can ftp from. Of course, you don't get all the
customization that wxmap affards, but you can see where the wind
and fronts are. Unfortunately, I am clueless on how to accomplish this.
(Also busy as hell.) Any ideas?

Ned
ngs@nyquist.bellcore.com