Table of Contents - The Atmospheric Studies Group at TRC

Section 7: Prognostic Meteorological Interfaces
Users are responsible for choosing correct horizontal and vertical ranges and correct AWIPS grid format
in Records 5-8, especially for the high-resolution WRF domains, although the code will check for
consistency. Extracted horizontal and vertical ranges should be within corresponding AWIPS domains.
Users should consult Figures 7-4 and 7-5 for geographical coverage. Vertical levels in current AWIPS
files are listed in Table 7-10. Selected vertical range in Line 7 should be within these limits.
Line 11 is the time interval in hours of initial ETA/NAM runs. The interval is 6 hours for AWIPS 212
and 218, 24 hours for AWIPS 245-247, 249, and 12 hours for AWIPS 248 and 250.
Line 12 is the flag for file naming convention. It should be “1” if file names have been renamed
following the rule in Table 7-11. It should be “0” if files keep their downloaded names; again users are
reminded to put files in date-hour subdirectories in this case.
Line 13 is the flag for run mode. The flag is “0” if running CALETA in the forecast mode, and it is “1”
for the hybrid mode (see below).
Line 14 is the flag for the web site, where AWIPS files are downloaded. This flag should be “1” if files
are downloaded from the NCEP wet site, and it is “0” for files from the NWS web site. Since only
AWIPS 212 files from the NWS web site can be used to create 3D.DAT file, this flag may be set to zero
only for AWIPS 212 files. For all other AWIPS files, this flag must be set to “1”.
CALETA can be applied in both forecast mode and historical mode (hybrid mode). In the forecast mode,
CALETA uses AWIPS files from one run to create a 3D.DAT file. Table 7-14 gives an example for
AWIPS 212 GRIB files used in a 24-hour 3D.DAT file in this mode. In the hybrid mode, CALETA uses
the latest AWIPS files from multiple ETA/NAM runs to create a 3D.DAT file (Table 7-15). In this mode,
if there are any missing files in the processing period, the latest existing files from previous runs will be
used as substitutes within a 48-hour limit (Table 7-16).
CALETA Output Files
CALETA.LST
The list file of CALETA records various information from processing, including user-specified input
controls, configurations of AWIPS files, processed files etc. This file should be consulted if CALETA
fails to produce a complete 3D.DAT. An example of list file is given in Table 7-17.
3D.DAT
A sample 3D.DAT file is shown and described in section (7.7).
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