THE NERC MST RADAR FACILITY AT ABERYSTWYTH
Availability They are currently available from 2006/03/16.
File naming convention:
ABYWP_YYYYMMDD_HHMM.txt for files with date-time stamps starting before 2006/08/16 09:30
 |
YYYY | |
is a 4-digit year [1990 - ] |
| MM | is a 2-digit month [01 - 12] | ||
| DD | is a 2-digit day [01 - 31] | ||
| HH | is a 2-digit hour [00 - 23] | ||
| MM | is a 2-digit minute [00 | 30] |
For messages with date-time stamps for 2009/01/15 12:30 and later, the date-time information represents the END of the 30 minute averaging period. For messages with earlier date-time stamps, the date-time information represents the beginning of the averaging period.
File location:
Met Office messages are not available through the BADC but can be provided to data users on request.
File format: These files adopt a simple ASCII format defined by the Met Office. The first 8 lines of the file ABWWP_20100114_0000.txt are shown as follows:
10 01 14 00 00 130 1685 0 260 3.1 0 -0.04 109 109 109 1835 0 259 3.1 0 -0.11 110 110 110 1984 0 250 2.6 0 -0.05 114 114 114 2133 0 264 2.6 0 -0.06 118 118 118 2282 0 256 2.9 0 -0.08 116 116 116 2431 0 248 2.6 0 -0.02 120 120 120The first two lines contain header information and all subsequent lines contain profile data:
- Line 1 contains the date-time stamp as YY MM DD HH MM. Note that the year
information (YY) is only given
in 2 digit format. For messages with date-time stamps for
2009/01/15 12:30 and later, the date-time information
represents the END of the 30 minute averaging period. For
messages with earlier date-time stamps, the date-time information
represents the beginning of the averaging period.
- Line 2 contains a single integer which defines the number of profile data lines which follow.
- Lines 3 onwards contain profile data in the following order:
- Value 1 - integer -
altitude of the (middle of the) range gate above mean sea level
(m)
- Value 2 - integer - reliability flag for values 3 and 4. A flag value of "0" implies that the associated values are reliable and a value of "1" implies that they are not. Note that this is the opposite of what is commonly found in other files. This value is set to "1", i.e. suggesting unreliable data, irrespective of actual data quality for all range gates with altitudes above 15 km starting from 2009/01/30 12:00.
- Value 3 - integer - horizontal wind (from) direction (°), i.e. following the meteorological convention.
- Value 4 - float - horizontal wind speed (m s-1).
- Value 5 - integer - reliability flag for values 6 - 9. A flag value of "0" implies that the associated values are reliable and a value of "1" implies that they are not. Note that this is the opposite of what is commonly found in other files.
- Value 6 - float - upward component of wind velocity (m s-1).
- Value 7 - integer - vertical beam radar return signal power (dB).
- Values 8 and 9 are repeats of value 7 and so can be ignored.
- Value 2 - integer - reliability flag for values 3 and 4. A flag value of "0" implies that the associated values are reliable and a value of "1" implies that they are not. Note that this is the opposite of what is commonly found in other files. This value is set to "1", i.e. suggesting unreliable data, irrespective of actual data quality for all range gates with altitudes above 15 km starting from 2009/01/30 12:00.
- Line 2 contains a single integer which defines the number of profile data lines which follow.