AWIPS Build OB8 D2D software release notes
These are changes from Build OB7.2.
Note:These are working notes on GSD's part of the
Build OB8 work. Some items may be modified or removed before OB8 hits
the field. Official Release Notes will be posted at the NWS AWIPS
site once the field release is ready.
These notes cover OB8.1, OB8.2, and OB8.3 features. If not tagged, items are released with
OB8.1.
Infrastructure
Graphics/image workstation
New features
- Radar:
- Estimated Actual Velocity. [OB8.2] A new tool is
provided to compute actual wind velocity from the radial component and a
user-supplied wind direction.
- Super-resolution 88D products. [OB8.2] New 1/4km
1/2deg width base products (Z, V, SW) are added to the radar menus, and can
be requested in RPS, OTR, and RMR applications. These products will become
available with ORPG Build 10, in mid-2008.
- Accommodation is made for dual-polarization radar products, including
menu and Volume Browser entries. In the latter, many more height levels are
included for new CAPPIs. Dual-pol products will become available with ORPG
Build 11, which is slated for field release beginning mid-2009. [OB8.3]
- Integrated radar/environment sampling. [OB8.3]
This tool projects model analysis and forecast grids onto radar volume tilt
surfaces and lets you sample the temperature, relative humidity, wind,
equivalent potential temperature, wet-bulb temperature, and pressure at the
height of the radar beam. A new '0' setting is added to the Density menu to
support this, as the model fields are initially displayed 'invisibly.'
- Satellite:
- Volume Browser:
- As noted above, several new dual-polarization radar fields are available
in the Volume Browser menus. Under Field:Other, new items are Tilt Angle,
Spectrum Width, Diff Refl, Corr Coeff, Spec Diff Phase, and Hydrometeor Class.
[OB8.3]
- WarnGen:
- Warn By Polygon is implemented in OB8.1. What you'll see:
- It's no longer possible to issue a warning that extends beyond your CWA
(except for the extended-area dam break warning). While you can still draw a
box crossing your CWA boundary, the polygon encoded in the LAT...LON line will
follow the boundary.
- The warned area may not be expanded for follow-ups.
- A new TIME...MOT...LOC line at the bottom of the product encodes the time,
motion (180DEG 0KT for flood warnings and other non-motion products), and
location. This is used to better support follow-ups.
- Warnings displays (NCEP/Hydro menu) now show each type (SVR, FLW, TOR,
etc.) in a unique color, and the display will auto-update whenever a new
warning is issued. The top section of the NCEP/Hydro menu now includes All
Local Warnings and All Regional Warnings selectors.
- These Warn By Polygon enhancements are added with OB8.2:
- It's now possible to either completely suppress partial-county descriptions
or to suppress north-south or east-west distinctions. Both are set on a
county-by-county basis. This also applies to zones - standard and marine.
- Warning templates can be configured to list affected basins, just as they
historically have listed counties. [deferred to OB8.3]
- The Partial Backup option has been removed.
Improvements
- Radar:
- Several changes have been made to the radar menus to accommodate the new
super-res products. [OB8.2] Among others, these include
- 4 Bit Prods, at the top, is now 4 Bit/Legacy Prods. Added here are the
3-bit SW and 8-bit (non super-res) Z & V products, and some old mesocylone
graphics that will be going away in ORPG10.
- DHR & HSR are moved from Derived>Other to Precip.
- Refl Clut Prob (CLR) and Vel Clut Prob (CLD) are pushed down into a new
Data Quality submenu. This also includes CFC, which is moved from
Derived>Other.
- On the (new) Data Quality menu, CFC is replaced by a set of five CFC
segment products. The OTR/RMR request will no longer include selection of
channel. [OB8.2]
- Satellite:
- Volume Browser:
- WarnGen:
- Product Maker:
- The Product Maker has been removed. (Raytheon)
- There is a new 30 min Local data QC plot on the main Obs menu. [OB8.2]
- MSAS obs (+QC) are now replicated on the Obs > Other Plots submenu (in
addition to their old home in NCEP/Hydro > LAPS/MSAS Analyses > MSAS (MAPS)).
[OB8.2]
Non-GSD work that affects the UI
- The Product Maker has been removed. (DR16920; Raytheon)
- On the NCEP/Hydro menu under HPC>Precipitation, there are three new
HPC QPF products. (Raytheon)
- In OB8.2, HPC gridded excessive rainfall products
are included. (DCS3437; Raytheon)
- On the NCEP/Hydro>LAMP/MOS Forecasts menu, the NGMLAMP and NGMLAMP QPF
sections have been removed. (Raytheon)
- The Satellite>Derived Products Imagery menu now includes Low Cloud Base
at the bottom of the GOES section. An accompanying Low Cloud Base color table
is added to the Sat section of the color tables menu. [OB8.2] (SEC)
- New grid source ECMWF-HiRes allows display of 1-deg ECMWF grids. These
are available via the Volume Browser for NH, N. American, CONUS, and Regional
scales. Fields include height, MSLP, RH, T, wind, precip, Td (sfc), and 3-h/6-h
max/min temps. There are new entries in the VB Sfc/2D Fields menu for these latter grids. (Raytheon)
- NamDNG5 grid source shows 5km downscaled NAM grids for NDFD. Fields include
T, Td, Tmin, Tmax, wind, precip, categorical rain, cloud, snow water equiv,
visibility, and geometric height, 3h increment out to 84 hours. [OB8.2] (DCS 3405; Raytheon) In OB8.3, added fields include surface T, Td, and wind, plus
3h max sfc RH. Max and min temps are now available for 3h and 12h periods.
These latter three, along with 12h max RH, 3h POP, and 3h total precip, are in
a new "NAM DNG 5km" submenu at the bottom of the Sfc/2D set in the Volume
Browser. (DR19684,DCS3456,DR20144; Raytheon)
- Also in OB8.3, NamDNG5 grids are available for
Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico. (RA8-137; Raytheon)
- New TDWR products include MD, DMD, ET, STI, HI, VIL, TVS, CZ, DHR, HSR, DSP,
DPA, USP, STP, OHP, THP, and SPD. These will be added to the TDWR menus as
appropriate and to the RPS, OTR, and RMR applications. [OB8.2] (SEC)
- The Four-Dimensional Storm Cell Investigator (FSI) can be launched by
selecting FSI from the Tools, kxxx, or Radar menus (Applications section of
latter two) and clicking with Mouse Button 3 at a location of interest. The
application brings up a separate four-panel display of radar that allows rapid
interactive quasi-3D viewing of radar volumes. [OB8.2]
(NSSL, MDL)
- RUC13 now includes an additional level for CAPE and CIN, plus a model
terrain field. [OB8.2] (DCS3424; Raytheon)
- New elements for gridded MOS include sky cover, wind gusts, QPF6hr, and
QPF12hr. [OB8.2] (DCS3381; Raytheon)
- TPC wind probabilities now are split into incremental and cumulative
components. To support this, in the Fields:Sfc/2D>TPC Guidance menu, Prob34Knot,
Prob50Knot, and Prob64Knot have been replaced by Cumulative Prob Wind Speed >
34 [50, 64] knots and Incremental Prob... [OB8.2]
(DCS3434; Raytheon)
- Dam Break and Flash Flood Statement templates have been updated to provide
more cause options, and to use a site-specific LLL-dam_info.txt file from
$FXA_CUSTOM_FILES. The latter can cause WarnGen to draw a pre-defined area for
the warning and include dam-specific text. This is accompanied by a new button
in the Redraw Box on Screen from: section titled "Dam Break Threat Area". [OB8.2] (DCS3388; Raytheon)
- A new Configure Monitor's Station Vis. Thresholds entry joins
Configure Monitor Area and Configure Monitor Thresholds (now
Monitor Algorithm Thresholds) on the appLauncher Fog Monitor Apps menu.
[OB8.2] (DCS3267; MDL)
- A set of aviation products is added to a new Aviation pull-down on the main
menu bar. Products include AIRMETs (icing, turbulence, visibility), SIGMETs
(convective, icing, turbulence, visibility, tropical, volcanic), the National
Convective Weather Forecast (NCWF), and the Collaborative Convective Forecast
Product (CCFP). This includes a new NCAR Convective Forecast color table in the
Satellite section. [OB8.2] (DCS3436; Raytheon)
- More aviation changes in OB8.3 include several maps
in a new FAA pull-right menu; new VB 'Other' fields turbulence, icing, and
supercooled large droplet threat; a selection of heights from 1kft to 45kft
(using 'FLxx' terminology 18kft+); and new Center Weather Advisory, SigWx, and
VAA displays. New AVIATION Turbulence Index, AVIATION Icing Severity, and
AVIATION SLD color tables are used for some of these products. (DCS3457;
Raytheon)
- A new radar watchdog will send an alert if certain products are not
received within appropriate times, as specified in file
/awips/fxa/data/radarWatchdog.txt. [OB8.2.1] (DRs19180,
19550, 19672, 19675; Raytheon)
- Probabilistic storm surge is added to the VB (source TPCSurgeProb). Fields
(on the Sfc/2D menu) include probabilities of several surge heights and 10%
chance of exceedence height. [OB8.3] (DCS3449;
Raytheon)
- High-res scatterometer winds are added. There are now two menu items:
QuikSCAT (now higher resolution) and ASCAT winds. [OB8.3] (DCS3458; Raytheon)
- Several new wave grids are available, as part of the WAVEWATCH III package.
[OB8.3] (DCS3454; Raytheon)
- Gridded MOS/NDFD grids are available for Alaska [OB8.3] (DCS3460; Raytheon)
- In OB8.3, new BiasHPE and HPE grid sources are
added to allow you to display Storm Tot Precip (actually, one hour, in most
cases) and Precip Rate estimated from radar. These grids are computed from
DHR and DSP (256-level STP) radar precipitation products, and are used as
input to FFMP. (DCS3479; OHD)
- The SCAN menu now includes a radar Rate Display item at the bottom of each
section. (DR19886; MDL)
- Hawaii and Puerto Rico AOR (RTMA) grids are available in OB8.3. (DCS3455, DR19800, DR19828; Raytheon)
Bug fixes
New bugs
Text workstation
New features
Improvements
Non-GSD work that affects the UI
Bug fixes
LDAD
New features
Improvements
Bug fixes
Last modified: 1 May 08