Most of this report covers FSL work. Except in the TDL Activities section (based on information provided by Matt Peroutka of TDL), the use of "we" below refers to FSL staff.
As noted in the last report, we established a quality assurance position, which has been filled by David Howard. Dave, who comes to FSL from several years in quality assurance and testing at IBM, is working in the areas of configuration management, requirements and bug tracking, testing and integration, and reviews. He already has established a bug-tracking system, which we have been using for our recent development work. Dave has degrees from the University of Miami, Florida International University, and the University of Colorado, and taught high school mathematics and computer science for several years.
As we have discussed in several reports, the worksheet is a key component of AFPS, providing access to the forecast database and serving as a control center for graphical editing work.
During this quarter, the first version of the AFPS worksheet was completed, and was presented to the AFWG at a meeting in Silver Spring, 7 - 9 March. An annotated picture of a worksheet is shown at the end of the report.
An initial version of a set of database interface routines was delivered to TDL in late January (Mathewson, Romberg). This provides the means for TDL developers to write grids initialized from Model Output Statistics (MOS) to the AFPS database, and to retrieve forecaster-modified data for use in generating text forecast products.
Editor design began in earnest at the end of January (Mathewson, LeFebvre). While the basic editor functions have been worked out over the past several months in consultation with members of the AFWG, the advent of the worksheet and experience with earlier prototypes require that the user interface (Mayer, Romberg) and internal details of editor operation be considerably modified. By the end of the quarter, initial implementation of the new editors was under way (Mathewson, LeFebvre, Mayer, Romberg, Longstaff, Wier).
As noted, we met with members of our forecaster working group in March. This meeting was held in Silver Spring to allow TDL developers to meet AFWG members and to increase their understanding of the AFPS "big picture." This was, once again, a productive meeting. In addition to discussing and testing the worksheet (LeFebvre), topics included progress reports on AFPS and Interactive Computer Worded Forecast (ICWF) development (ICWF demo by Dave Ruth), initialization techniques (from MOS - Peroutka, and from numerical model grids - Wier), data extraction and summarization for zone forecast generation (Mark Oberfield), aviation forecast issues (Mathewson, Carl DeSpiegelaere), cloud display concepts (Wier), interpolation work (Wier), and plans for testing AFPS as part of FSL's WFO-Advanced system (Wakefield). As usual, AFWG members (including new members Craig Bauer of WSFO ANC and Bruce Smith of WSFO DTX) offered many insightful and useful comments and suggestions to the FSL and TDL development staffs.
WFO-Advanced developers have been working with TDL to provide initialization data. These data will eventually flow into AFPS' reference worksheets.
Todd Dankers, the Denver AFPS focal point, worked with AFPS developers to specify the initial set of grid points which would be used. He will be providing TDL guidance on how to use station-based forecasts to initialize a grid field.
The Charleston forecasters are also evaluating a number of product generation programs which will be useful in AFPS. The product list has been expanded to include most public and closely related products (Zone Forecast, Agricultural Forecast, Coded Cities Forecast, and a variety of coded and tabular products).
TDL developers are working on initializing aviation variables, and they are rethinking the software which recommends zone combinations.
Interpolation code will be written, based on the algorithms developed over the past several months. Separate methods are used for scalar, vector, and weather fields.
Work on initialization from models will continue. By the end of the quarter, RUC initialization will be running every 3 hours (i.e., all RUC model runs), and grids of these weather elements will be stored in the AFPS database. We also will be generating AFPS weather elements from LAPS (FSL's Local Analysis and Prediction System) grids.
With the completion of the gatekeeper, the database interface routines provided to TDL in January will be updated. These same routines will also be used for LAPS and the FSL-developed NOAA Emergency Management Weather Dissemination System, which in the future will provide AFPS forecast grids to state and local governments for emergency preparedness.
Joe Wakefield and Mark Mathewson will travel to Silver Spring 17-18 April for presentations of FSL's WFO-Advanced work, including AFPS.
This is the Forecast Worksheet, with which I work to generate my forecasts. The rectangles in each row are called time blocks. Each time block shows the valid period of a single weather element grid. In this example, the database contains numerous temperature grids, each containing data for a single hour. The first two weather grids span 12 hours each, followed by several 3-hour grids.
I've opened three editors, two spatial and one temporal, which are numbered in the order in which I opened them. Spatial Editor 3 is active in this example, with its display time set to 08 UTC 4 Apr. Elements temp and weather are selected, and the grids that are displayed in the editor (not shown) are highlighted. Note that the whole 12-hour weather grid is highlighted, since all of it necessarily is displayed at once.
The dark area around dew_point 09-11 UTC indicates that I've locked this particular time block (either by modifying its valid period or by editing the contents of the grid). Since I've changed something about this particular element, my partner forecaster sharing the database is not allowed to modify it until I release it by storing the modified information in the database.
Finally, the cross-hatching between 04 and 07 UTC shows that I've selected temp and dew_point for possible modification, on a per-grid basis. That is, I may plan to copy this evening's data to tomorrow, or may delete them, to fill the gap by interpolation.
I have other worksheets available that contain first-guess information from numerical models. I can look at the weather elements in those worksheets and use them as a guide while editing the official grids, or I can copy them to the Forecast Worksheet, using them as the basis for my work.
Dave Howard Quality Assurance specialist
303-938-2088
dhoward@fsl.noaa.gov
Tom LeFebvre Meteorologist/Programmer (design,
303-938-2086 graphic editors, database)
lefebvre@fsl.noaa.gov
Jennifer Longstaff Programmer (graphics, UI)
303-938-2069
longstaff@fsl.noaa.gov
Mark Mathewson Technical Manager -- Meteorologist/
303-938-2061 Programmer/Designer
mathewson@fsl.noaa.gov
Bob Mayer Programmer (graphics, UI, design)
303-938-2075
rmayer@fsl.noaa.gov
Mike Romberg Programmer (network, graphics)
303-938-2084
romberg@fsl.noaa.gov
Joe Wakefield Project Manager -- Meteorologist
303-938-2089
wakefield@fsl.noaa.gov
Stuart Wier Programmer (graphics displays,
303-938-2078 interpolation, initialization)
wier@fsl.noaa.gov
Our fax number is 303-497-3096.
Information about AFPS and the EFT Branch is available on the World-Wide Web via URL http://www-md.fsl.noaa.gov/eft/EFThome.html.
Please direct comments on or questions about this report to Joe Wakefield.