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MOS Coop Products
MDL has developed MOS forecast equations based on output from NCEP's GFS model for maximum and minimum temperature and snowfall amount guidance for approximately 6300 cooperative observer sites in the United States.
Development of snowfall amount guidance was also done based on the Eta model.
These developments were done using NCDC's TD-3200 Cooperative Summary of the Day reports.
Maximum/Minimum Temperature Guidance
The short-range text messages contains maximum and minimum temperatures for 1 to 4 days from the 0000, 0600, 1200, and 1800 UTC GFS model runs. The extended-range text message contains maximum and minimum temperature forecasts for 1 to 8 days from the 0000 UTC GFS model run. In early 2005, we plan to begin producing an extended-range text product from the 1200 UTC GFS model run as well. We currently have no plans to produce temperature guidance based on the Eta model.
The stations in the message are listed alphabetically by state, using their NWS site identifier. For max/min temperature, guidance is available for approximately 5600 sites.
Sample messages of the GFS-based text messages for all 4 cycles are available here.
Starting with the 1200 UTC cycle on May 25, 2004, the forecasts will be available on the NWS ftp server, which has 24x7 operational support. The products will continue to be available on our webpages, which are only supported during regular business hours. The locations for both are given below. We will begin distributing the messages to AWIPS via the SBN on February 8, 2005. The NWS announcement of this change is TIN 04-54. The WMO and AWIPS headers will be:
WMO HEADER AWIPS HEADER
FOUS10 KWNO MCGUSA SHORT-RANGE GFS GUIDANCE
FEUS10 KWNO MCXUSA EXTENDED-RANGE GFS GUIDANCE
Location of messages on NWS FTP Server (TGFTP):
Short-range GFS-based Maximum and Minimum Temperature Guidance
Extended-range GFS-based Maximum and Minimum Temperature Guidance
On this server, the files are stored in directories called RD.YYYYMMDD, where YYYYMMDD is the year, month and day. Within the RD.YYYYMMDD directory, the files will be named cy.XX.txt, where XX is the cycle. Data will be available for two days.
Location of messages on webserver:
Short-range GFS-based Maximum and Minimum Temperature Guidance
Extended-range GFS-based Maximum and Minimum Temperature Guidance
Snowfall Guidance
Snowfall guidance is produced for roughly 5400 cooperative observer sites for both the GFS and Eta models. At this time the coop snowfall guidance is available only in graphical format. The GFS- and Eta-based Coop Snowfall guidance is available from September 1st through May 31st.
GFS short-range graphical depictions (listed under Snowfall/Precipitation Type)
Eta graphical depictions (listed under Snowfall)
Additional Information
For a description of the GFS MOS snowfall amount development, please see the following paper:
Producing MOS Snowfall Amount Forecasts from Cooperative Observer Reports
For more information about NCDC data and the cooperative observing network, please see NCDC's website.
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