The organization and integration of this auxiliary information with the current data also will be described.
Current data are always available to clients requesting products via the Web.
In addition, server-side image creation limits the user's ability to customize and interact with the data. FInally, because the raw Mesonet and NIDS data files tend to be smaller than their corresponding image equivalents, this processing scheme reduces bandwidth consumption. This software determines which of the ingested products is the most recent and delivers the data upon receiving a request from the client machines. Form-based menus to request data were avoided in the CGI software to reduce the steps required for users to download data. The Web pages also are designed to request and deliver Mesonet and NIDS files every 15 and 6 minutes, respectively, to help ensure that users are making decisions based upon the most current information.