Modifications in the July release of the fxa-3.0 build

• The system was upgraded from HP/UX v10.10 to v10.20. This includes a change from VUE to CDE workspace managers. The login procedure is slightly different, and the front panel (the D2D, E2D, etc. button bar) has changed, but the startup procedure is still the same. (On the up side, the front panel now properly displays both local and UTC clocks.)
• PRC supplied a new version of the SBN CP software (using an upgrade to the operating system, HP-RT 2.2 and DWB v7). The WFO-A data acquisition software was modified to accommodate these changes.
• Also new in the acquisition software is a time-out mechanism that will send a message to the NCF if no data are received on either the TG or NESDIS circuits.
• The data and process monitors are now part of the software build, rather than being stand-alone systems. They, too, include AWIPS monitor and control hooks to alert NCF to problems.
• Data availability is improved by making several decoders more reliable.
• 3.01 The radar subsystem has been certified by the OSF. Numerous changes have been made in the radar interface to make the system more stable.

New features

none

Improvements

• Pilot reports are now handled similarly to the AFOS method, stored by state. Routine reports are stored as PRCxx and urgent reports as PIRxx.
• 3.01 The zones/Nowcast formatter programs have been improved to more rigorously check the format of the input work files. Also, the message window for these has been enlarged so error messages can be read easily by the user.
• 3.01 Inventory times in the browser now auto-update.
• 3.01 Scripts can now be renamed, via an option under the File menu of the script editor. Also, a new script no longer carries a default name. When you save a new script, you're prompted for a name under which to save it.

Bug fixes

• 3.01 A:HH CCCNNN commands can be entered again, as it's possible to enter a space into a product request. (This request still does not work properly, though.)
• 3.01 The behavior of the browser inventory process has changed. Previously, if you selected, say, MTR, then another NNN, you had to wait perhaps quite some time for the MTR inventory to display before the browser would show the new NNN's XXXs. Now, the latter will come up right away (though its inventory will still wait until the first inventory completes). The result is a much more responsive browser.
• 3.01 When you are viewing the earliest version of a product and select Previous, the screen no longer clears.
• 3.01 A bug that caused the alarm bell sometimes to stay around even when all alarm products had been dealt with has been fixed.

New or remaining bugs

• The WarnGen window occasionally doesn't pop up automatically, because the text notification server has crashed or wasn't started). Workaround: Request DENWRKWGx from any window. (The warning expiration reminder won't work in this case.)
• The text subsystem still uses 3-character station IDs. As a result, the Help function in the browser and the button-2 popup station ID info on METAR messages have some problems. In the former, the trailing three characters are used (assuming a K), and some lower-48 sites are identified as Alaskan, and vice versa. In the latter, only Kxxx sites read 4 characters. Others read just the first 3, so Pxxx IDs are not found or are incorrect.
• Torn-away menus don't respond to changes in the edit state.
• The text database now distinguishes products by length. Short products (those less than 2000 bytes) are not vulnerable to the text database corruptions that have been an occasional problem. "Long" products must be defined as such; if a product exceeds the limit, but is not specified on the list of long categories, it will be truncated. Please inform FSL if you find any that are truncated so that they can be added to the list of long products.
• The text browser does not show all categories that are available for other sites. In general, all products appropriate for the U.S. are stored in the text database, so even though the text browser doesn't include them, they are there. An example is zone forecasts for many areas.
• A:HH CCCNNN does not work properly. A: does.
• When the Nowcast generator detects a format error, it creates and stores a blank (header-only) product.

New features

• 3.01 If an IGC (display process) crashes, it will restart automatically. This eliminates occurrences of a black, unusable, monitor pane, and should greatly reduce the number of restarts required. If a restart occurs, you'll get a red-box message so indicating.
• 3.01 Hydro applications are now available from the D2D menu, rather than from the root pop-up/other workspace.

Improvements

• The "every image" choices for satellite are now on the bottom half of the first-level satellite menu, instead of in a submenu.
• When you set the Volume Browser to Animate in Space, the Prognosis loop load mode is automatically selected. Previously, this mode "stuck" until you changed the Volume Browser back to Animate in Time. If the VB was closed or hidden, or simply unused, it was not at all obvious why you couldn't select a different load mode. Now, selecting a different load mode forces the Volume Browser to switch to Animate in Time mode.
• 3.01 Several items have been added to the skew-T plots. These include helicity, storm motion, and storm info on the hodograph; and helicity, storm motion, height of wet-bulb zero, soaring parameters (trigger temp and soaring index), CCL, LCL, LFC, and convective gust potential in the annotation text. Also, the text below the plots will abbreviate when character size gets large to allow you to see as many of the numbers as possible.
• 3.01 A few changes have been made to the radar menus to make them easier to understand and more consistent with the RPS and one-time-request applications.
• 3.01 Several additional fields are now available from the MRF. These include data at 1000, 850, 700, 300, and 250 hPa, convective precip, and wave-5 height. Also, the Northern Hemisphere and North American grid sets for MRF are now equivalent.
• 3.01 Numerous additional AVN model fields are now available on the double-resolution grid. This will improve their displayed appearance. Vertical velocity levels now also include 900, 950, and 1000 hPa.

Bug fixes

• Zooming in on a skew-T plot is now safe. The bug that caused the display to lock if the chart moved off the top of the display is fixed.
• Previously, the display might crash while loading a text-based product (e.g., flash flood guidance, SELS watch), or the product might display improperly. This has been fixed.
• Flash flood products display again. (These worked prior to the February upgrade.)
• All weather symbols (SQ, at least, used to be wrong) now are correctly positioned on METAR plots.
• Some radar products cannot be handled by the current software. These have been removed from the OTR and RPS list application menus, and from the display menus. (OK, this is not quite a bug fix, but a worthwhile work-around.)
  3.01 Weak Echo Region, Hourly Digital Precip Array, Radar Coded Message (unedited), and Combined Moment are re-added to the OTR list.
• Previously, some METAR obs didn't get plotted despite the fact that data for those sites was in the text database - we believe that this is fixed.
• Layer reflectivity and echo tops images can be displayed.
• In the one-time request (OTR) application, you no longer can request more than one version of a product from a dial-out radar.
• There was a problem with grid cross section problems that manifested itself in at least two ways: sometimes displaying such cross sections would hang the workstation; and at least one user had problems with a continual reload scenario when calling a cross section from a procedure. This was traced to an over-notification of grid arrivals, and has been fixed.
• When you Exit the display software, the Volume Browser (and any other open applications) now shuts down, too.
• A full complement of satellite images is available in the Every Image section of the satellite menu (active on NH, NA, and CONUS scales). Previously, you often would find only one (sometimes zero) versions there.
• 3.01 Mapping of storm track and mesocyclone radar graphics was incorrect. It's now fixed.
• 3.01 A fix was made to the SPC ("SELS") watch display. In certain cases, one of the vertices was incorrectly plotted off screen, resulting in a rather bizarre box.
• 3.01 There was a problem with a few infrequently-used grid products (items involving adding two fields together - e.g., MAPS precip). This has been fixed.
• 3.01 METAR precip plots are now correct. Previously, they often plotted amounts too high, due to an error in interpreting the precip code in the obs.
• 3.01 ALERT precip plots are now properly scaled, and are summed from all 5-minute reports. (This was fixed with a patch on 1 August.)

Remaining bugs

• The default load mode (Valid Time Sequence or Latest Model Run) is not restored after a swap.
• Graphics controls are not properly set with bundle loads. Although the magnification and density are set as they should be, the graphics controls dialog box does not change to reflect the current settings.
• When you load products, clear, then swap the now-empty frame into a small pane, it improperly shows the time label from the previously displayed product.
• "Novocaine" - Occasionally the workstation will not respond to any mouse inputs. These episodes typically last around 5 seconds.
• LDAD plots - We still are lacking complete metadata on the CDoT stations, so there are a some stations we can't plot.
• National-scale satellite images do not auto-update. (The entries on the "Every Image" part of the menu do.)
• 4-panel charts don't print correctly. Only one panel prints, though all four labels are included.
• Once you're in 4-panel mode, you stay there until explicitly Clearing the screen. If you select products on a different scale, you'll get the same thing loaded in each panel.
• LAPS surface moisture convergence has the wrong sign.
• The Northern Hemisphere and North American "Every Image" menus, though up to date, often yield zero or one image.
• Some radar products display incorrectly, including Composite Reflectivity Contour and Severe Weather Analysis (window) products.

New bugs

• In the Product Maker, the scalar load button does not work.
• SRM cursor read-out in range-folded areas reads ">50 kts".

CM WFO-Advanced Home Page

This page is maintained by Joe Wakefield.

Last modified: 26 Aug 97