Subject: Now available: Modsnd 4.2
From: Robert Rozumalski <rozumal@ucar.edu>
Date: Mon, 15 Nov 2004 10:49:49 -0700
To:   allsoos@comet.ucar.edu, soostrc@comet.ucar.edu


Welcome to my fast and furious Monday!

I have placed a Modsnd Version 4.2 on the soo/strc ftp server
and web site. The primary purpose of this upgrade is to provide
support for the UPS radiational fog technique now available in
BUFKIT (build 63) and the eta to nam name change currently underway.

Additionally, I have tried to include all the suggestions and
requests sent to me by the field since the release of Modsnd 4.1.

Let me know if you have any questions.

Bob


CHANGES SINCE PREVIOUS RELEASE

  * Fixed a bug that caused the script to fail when the correct
    cycle time of the data to download was the last run of the day,
    i.e, 18Z for the eta, 12Z for the ngm.  Was not a problem when
    using the -c argument.

    Thanks to Brian Walawender for bringing this to my attention.

  * Updated station list for GFS soundings 6-digit station numbers
    and 4 character station IDs. Also changed from avn to gfs on
    NCEP server.

  * Added North American Mesoscale (NAM) model support to modsnd.

  * Added support for the North American Mesoscale (NAM) model
    archive on the SOO/STRC ftp server (nama).

  * The prepend option (-p) now creates 2 bufkit files, one with the
    normal <model>_<stid>.buf and another with YYMMDD appended to
    the beginning of the file, i.e, YYMMDD.<model>_<stid>.buf.

  * Users can now ftp BUFKIT files to as many remote ftp servers as
    they desire.  This "friends and family" option is described in the
    modsnd.conf file.

  * Modified BUFKIT fields for use with the UPS radiational fog
    technique introduced in BUKFKIT 4 build 63. The default is
    to create BUFKIT files for post build 62 versions of BUFKIT.

    Bufkit release 63 is available at the following WDTB website:

       http://www.wdtb.noaa.gov/resources/projects/BUFKIT

  * Added optional flag (-b) for backwards compatibility with pre-
    BUFKIT 4 build 63 releases.



INSTALLATION NOTES

1/2. Modsnd requires that NAWIPS, version 5.6.d or better be
     installed on your local host

1. Modsnd may be installed anywhere on your workstation; however,
   for these instructions we will assume /usr1 as the installation
   directory.

   % mv modsnd42.tar.gz  /usr1
   % cd /usr1
   % tar -xzvf modsnd42.tar.gz
   % ln -s modsnd42 modsnd

2. You will need to edit 2 files before you begin downloading BUFR files,
   get_bufr.pl and config/modsnd.conf

   1. Change the path name at the top of get_bufr.pl to reflect
      the location of modsnd on your system.

   2. Make any changes necessary to config/modsnd.conf

      make sure you have read/write permission to the top
      level of your "metdat" directory.


3. All the model configuration files are located in config
   directory. Note that all you need to to to add/remove
   support for a BUFR data set is to add/remove the appropriately
   named file.



-- 
Robert A. Rozumalski, PhD
NWS National SOO Science and Training Resource Coordinator

COMET/UCAR PO Box 3000   Phone:  303.497.8356
Boulder, CO 80307-3000