TOWR-S RPM Communications - Total Operational Weather Readiness - Satellites (TOWR-S)
GOES-16 AWIPS RPM February 2018 Release Newsletter
By: the NWS Office of Observations' Total Operational Weather Readiness - Satellites (TOWR-S) Team
The NCF has made the February 2018 version of the GOES-16 RPM available in the AWIPS repository, and installation instructions are here.
RPM Highlights
The TOWR-S team has been working with the NWS/NESDIS Satellite Enhancement Team (SET) on a weekly basis to bring these new AWIPS satellite improvements to you. NWS WFO SOOs, Frank Alsheimer (CAE), Mike Stavish (MFR) Brian Carcione (HUN), Pete Wolf (JAX), Jeremy Martin (GLD), and Dave Zaff (BUF) participate regularly with the SET. Their leadership guides the team to make changes to AWIPS configurations files that allow NWS forecasters to best utilize GOES-16 data. Thanks to their insight, we offer to you the following AWIPS enhancements in the February 2018 version of the RPM:
1) The "GOES-16" menu under "Satellite" has been renamed "GOES-East and GOES-S" in recognition of GOES-16 becoming the operational GOES-E satellite and in anticipation of the launch of the GOES-S satellite in March 2018.
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2) Under the "GOES-E and GOES-S" menu, there is now a menu under "CONUS with Legacy" that says "GOES-16 with GOES-15." Under this, there are five options:
i) IR Window: This displays the GOES-16 11.2 um channel with the GOES-15 10.7 um channel
ii) Water Vapor: This displays the GOES-16 6.9 um channel with the GOES-15 6.5 um channel
iii) Visible: This displays the GOES-16 0.64 um channel with the GOES-15 0.65 um channel
iv) 3.9 um: This displays the GOES-16 3.9 um channel with the GOES-15 3.9 um channel
v) 13.3 um: This displays the GOES-16 13.3 um channel with the GOES-15 13.3 um channel
Note that these are displayed on top one another to allow for easy changing of the top image.
Also note that the color tables for each satellite's data are not the same. That is, the GOES-15 color tables are 8-bit color tables while the GOES-16 color tables are 11-bit color tables. In some cases, the GOES-15 color table was transformed into an 11-bit color table (i.e. they look alike), and in other cases it was not. Hence, some composited displays have different color enhancements for GOES-15 and GOES-16. You cannot use a GOES-15 color table to display GOES-16 data or vice versa, or else the brightness temperatures will not look correct anymore.
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3) An additional set of menus has been added under the "Satellite" menu, titled "S-NPP and NOAA-20." Formerly, this button appeared as "S-NPP." This menu will become populated with polar-orbiting data from the JPSS-1 (now called NOAA-20), in the near future, as data from that satellite begins to flow over the SBN, in addition to the currently-flowing S-NPP data.
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4) The Derived Motion Winds GOES-16 product display has changed when selecting the display "By Pressure." The winds by each pressure level are all colored the same color, encouraging multiple pressure levels to be displayed at once.
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5) A fix was made to the "Split Snow" GOES-E channel difference that eliminates occasional artifacts of areas that display as zero value.
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6) Color table numerical values have now been added to the display for GOES-E channels 1-6.
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7) The "Cloud Top Phase" GOES-E channel difference channels have been changed to 11.2 um - 8.4 um.
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8) Some WFOs (not all) were reporting that after GOES-13 was turned off, they were not receiving the Visible, IR, or WV channels from GOES-15 anymore (only the 3.9 um and 13.3 um channels were being received). This issue has been corrected in a configuration file.
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9) The maximum range for the GOES-E Sea Surface Temperature product has been modified from 40 degrees C to 35 degrees C (for better color table fidelity).
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10) The display of the GOES-E Aerosol Detection product has drastically changed. Changes include:
i) Data quality flags have been added by NESDIS to the product that AWIPS can take advantage of. The product now filters out much of the high concentrations of aerosols due to both sun glint and the solar zenith angle.
ii) The Aerosol Detection Product appears as two different buttons in the sub-menus under Full Disk, CONUS, and Mesoscale, listing "Dust" and "Smoke."
iii) When displaying either "Dusk" or "Smoke", confidence values are displayed, equating to High, Medium, and Low confidence of either dust or smoke.
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11) For National Center sites, the full-range of RGBs and color differences are now viewable in your CONUS and Mesoscale menus. This is because your data is being displayed as fixed grid, eliminating any "checkerboard" issues the SBN data may have. Fixed grid data is planned for the SBN data later in 2018.
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For the sake of continuity, it is not recommended that sites skip these RPM updates.
That's all for this month!
If you have issues installing the RPM, please contact the NCF.
If you have any questions or feedback about the RPM contents, please contact Eric Guillot at NWS HQ at eric.guillot@noaa.gov or 301-427-9250.
See you next month!