2004 July 08

  We have some good news (good new products, improved old ones, additional
places to get the products) and some bad news (communication problems 
and changes) this time around.

Bad news:
  
  The wwb.noaa.gov domain is going away.  It has been paralleled for
some years now with the ncep.noaa.gov domain.  We have just been informed
about wwb.noaa.gov going away, and going away soon -- 
August 23rd is the last date.  

  All you need to do regarding this one is replace wwb with ncep in
all links, bookmarks, and the like that you have, or that anybody
else has.  ('all').  polar.ncep.noaa.gov is already reachable, and
has been for some years.  But please do change your references
because after the 23rd of August, you won't be able to get anything
other than error messages about 'no such address' if you try 
wwb.noaa.gov addresses.

Possibly good:
  We've been having reports of problems connecting for ftp to polar.
This might have been repaired recently, but then again may not.  If
you are an interactive user of the wave model bulletins, we have
changed those from ftp references to http references, and you should
now have no difficulty.
  If you are having problems still, please do report that to me
(and ncep.helpdesk@noaa.gov, if you would).

  Our entire site is mirrored at ftp.polar.ncep.noaa.gov
-- the only difference is that you must omit 'pub' from your path
names.  ex:
               ftp://ftp.polar.ncep.noaa.gov/waves/
rather than:
               ftp://polar.ncep.noaa.gov/pub/waves/

  Many of the near real time products are available on a different
server -- ftpprd.ncep.noaa.gov
For details of location and availability, please see
  http://polar.ncep.noaa.gov/mmab/translation.shtml
If this system serves you better, please let me know that too.
If files that ought to be on that system are not, or you cannot
connect to it, please write to SDM@noaa.gov
Note that in an earlier announcement, we expected to be moving
all service to this system by April 23rd, 2004.  This has not
happened because our users (you all) wrote in to us about the
ftpprd system's inferior performance.  We have no intention
of degrading our service to you.



Good news:

Waves:
March 2nd, data assimilation was added to the model
           model forecast horizon (for the non-hurricane models) was
              extended to 180 hours
August '03, Pacific Hurricane wave model was implemented
bulletins are now available by http link from the web site, rather than
just ftp.
a slew of output points have been added over the year. 


Sea Ice:
  A high(er) resolution sea ice has been approved for operations.
It will be coming to the web site by the end of the month.  The new 
fields are 12.7 km (versus 25.4) on the polar stereographic grids, 
and 5 minutes (versus 30) on the latitude-longitude grids.  Since 
the graphics are substantially larger than formerly, I am reorganizing 
the displays.  The fields will be supported by a new 4+ year archive 
of data analyzed in the same way, so that time series users should be 
able to determine whether there are jumps which affect their results 
(and so that you can mail me about the fact!  There shouldn't be any jumps.)

Marine Meteorology:
  Products have been reorganize, and are now under 
http://polar.ncep.noaa.gov/marine.meteorology/
  New Global Visibility model operational April 2004.
  New Global Vessel Icing model operational April 2004. 
  Both new models run year-round


Things to come:
SST -- we expect to be producing an experimental sea surface temperature
  field at very high resolution starting some time early this fall.
  'very high' = 5 minutes in latitude and longitude (approximately 
  9 km latitude).

Ocean Forecast System -- A newer generation forecast model is in the 
  works.  The ROFS, at http://polar.ncep.noaa.gov/cofs/ is still 
  operational, and will remain so until replaced by something better.  
  Some improvements will be seen, however, in ROFS even before the newer 
  generation system comes out.

 

Reminders:

  Please link to the web pages, rather than the graphics (we move and rename
graphics, and it is harder to give users a message).  You need not get 
approval before linking.  What we do is freely available to all.  (See 
http://www.nws.noaa.gov/disclaimer.html for a detailed answer.)

  If you have any email addresses which are @ncep.noaa.gov, those
are outmoded and will start failing soon.  Our correct email addresses
are given on the web pages, and at the personnel pages from
http://polar.ncep.noaa.gov/mmab/groups.shtml
  If you have any email addresses for us which are @sunNN.wwb.noaa.gov,
@sgiNN.wwb.noaa.gov, and the like, then these are probably already
failing.  If not, they soon will.  

Service addresses:
waves           NCEP.EMC.waves@noaa.gov
sea ice         NCEP.EMC.seaice@noaa.gov
winds           NCEP.EMC.marine.meteorology@noaa.gov
SST             NCEP.EMC.marine.meteorology@noaa.gov
fog, vessel icing       NCEP.EMC.marine.meteorology@noaa.gov
ocean circulation       NCEP.EMC.coastal.ocean@noaa.gov
web             NCEP.EMC.marineweb@noaa.gov