TOWR-S RPM Communications - Total Operational Weather Readiness - Satellites (TOWR-S)
GOES-16 AWIPS RPM January 2018 Release Newsletter
By: the NWS Office of Observations' Total Operational Weather Readiness - Satellites (TOWR-S) Team
The NCF has made the January 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 January 2018 version of the RPM:
1) The following changes have been made to the "Channel Difference" menu:
a) Added:
- "Split Water Vapor" channel difference (6.2 microns minus 7.3 microns)
- "Day Fog" channel difference (3.9 microns minus 10.3 microns)
- "Split Fire" channel difference (2.2 microns minus 1.6 microns)
- "Split Ozone" channel difference (9.6 microns minus 10.3 microns)
- "Split Snow" channel difference (1.6 microns minus 0.64 microns)
- "Split Cloud Top Phase" channel difference (10.3 minus 8.4 microns)
b) Removed:
- "Snow" channel difference (0.64 microns minus 1.6 microns)
- "Cloud Phase" channel difference (8.4 microns minus 11.2 microns)
- "Upper Level Info" channel difference (11.2 microns minus 6.2 microns)
c) Renamed:
- "Moisture" channel difference is now called "Split Window" channel difference
- "Fog" channel difference is now called "Night Fog" channel difference
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2) Removed some RGBs from the CONUS/Puerto Rico/Hawaii/Alaska/Mesoscale Sector sub-menus that result in a "checkerboard" pattern. Note that these RGBs have already been removed from the Center position sub-menus in a previous RPM release. When the fixed-grid imagery is implemented later in 2018, these RGBs will be put back into the RPM.
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3) A geostationary map scale configuration file is added for the West, Center, and East satellite position. Instructions for adding the map as a pull-down option are included in the configuration file, as well as on the VLab TOWR-RPM installation page. These are not automatically installed with the RPM because doing so may overwrite local AWIPS configurations. Thus, it is up to the individual site to decide if they do or do not want these maps. Note that these maps are the best way to view Full Disk imagery from GOES-16.
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4) On the RPM installation page, there are instructions for how to modify the pqact.conf file to include a sequence number in the file names for GOES-16 derived products. This avoids the dropping of files due to "duplicate records" being detected by LDM. This is particularly useful for the mesoscale Derived Motion Winds products. If you choose not to make this change, the change is baselined in AWIPS version 17.3.1, which will be released in March 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 in February!