NOAAPort NWSTG Gridded Models

The National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) archives data from the NOAAPort NWSTG as digital data set DSI-6435. NOAA is the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, of which the National Weather Service (NWS) is a part. NWSTG is the National Weather Service Telecommunications Gateway. The NOAAPort broadcast system provides a one way-broadcast communication of NOAA environmental data and information in near-real time to NOAA and external users. This broadcast service is implemented by a commercial provider of satellite communications utilizing C-band. Weather data is collected by Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES) satellite environmental sensors and NWS observing systems, and processed to create products. The products are fed to the Advanced Weather Interactive Processing System (AWIPS) Network Control Facility (NCF) which routes the products to the appropriate NOAAPort channel for uplink and broadcast. The NOAAPort data and products are formatted for transmission by the NWS and are currently provided by four data streams, however NCDC only archives the text products within the NCEP/NWSTG Channel. NCDC archives this channel in two files. This documentation discusses the Gridded Models. These include all the major models offered from the NWS as well as the European Models. The Text Products file is the other part of this series that NCDC archives and it can be found in NOAAPort NWSTG DSI-6431 (C00610). As of 20050712, this dataset is no longer active. DSI-6435 has been discontinued in favor of higher resolution prodicts archived for the NOMADS project. The only active NOAAPort data is now NOAAPort NWSTG. GOES East Channel - From the GOES East satellite, a data stream consisting of the following imagery products: visible, infrared, and water vapor for the Eastern Conterminous United States (CONUS), Puerto Rico, supernational composites, and Northern Hemisphere (NH) composites. GOES West Channel - From the GOES West satellite, a data stream consisting of the following imagery products: visible, infrared, water vapor for CONUS, Alaska, and Hawaii; supernational composites, and NH composites. NCEP/NWSTG Channel - From the NWS Telecommunications Gateway (NWSTG) this data stream consists of a variety of text and binary data including the entire Family of Services: Domestic Data - observations, text model output, Public Products - advisories, watches, warnings and forecasts International Data - non US data sources, mostly observational data A superset of the Hi-Res data streams - GRIB/BUFR data from all the major NWS models (NGM,AVN, MRF, Early Eta, MesoEta, and RUC) as well as model data from ECMWF and UKMET. NIDS - It includes a substantial subset of the Nexrad Radar data stream NLDN - lightning data and Graphical products (Redbook and GIF formats). Non-GOES Imagery/DCP Data Channel - This channel's data stream includes GOES DCP data, GMS/GOES-West/GOES-East/METEOSAT-5/METOSAT-7 composites for visible, IR, and water vapor products (every 3 hours), OCONUS grids, and reserve capacity for selected other satellite imagery to be acquired by NESDIS for future field applications. The products available are determined by current weather patterns. More than 6,400 individual products per day are transmitted. As the NWS modernizes, it anticipates little change to this satellite system. The NWS expects, however, that modernizing operations will be matched with a significant growth in the total number of weather products available. As part of the transition to modernized operations, the NWS is investigating the feasibility of using the NOAAPORT to transmit greater numbers of forecasts and warnings in graphical form.