Office of Coast Survey - Details of Chesapeake Bay Local Analysis and Prediction Systems

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Information about the Chesapeake Bay LAPS (CBLAPS)

Version:

CBLAPS is based on version 0-14-7 of the NOAA FSL LAPS distribution which was installed at a NOS CBLAPS workstation on July 10, 2001.

Grid Configuration:

A 125 x 125 grid point mesh centered over the Chesapeake Bay with a horizontal resolution of 4-km

Hardware:

CBLAPS runs on a National Weather Service HP, J Class, dual processor workstation located at NWS Baltimore/Washington Weather Forecast Office in Sterling, VA.

Types of Surface Observations:

1. Traditional NWS, NOS, FAA, and DOD Observing Networks:

a) Inland Sites:

Automated Surface Observing System (ASOS)

Automated Weather Observing Station (AWOS)

b) Marine Sites:

NWS/NDBC Coastal-Marine Automated Network (C-MAN) stations (www.ndbc.noaa.gov)

NWS/NDBC Fixed Buoys (www.ndbc.noaa.gov)

NOS CO-OPS Physical Oceanographic Real-Time Reporting System (PORTS) (www.co-ops.nos.noaa.gov)

2. Non-Traditional Observing Networks:

a) Marine Sites:

Maraks Services (iwindsurf.com) mesonet

(Unfortunately, real-time observations from Univ. of MD's CBOS fixed buoys are NOT available to NOS or NWS at present time.)

Data Cutoff Window:

Data "cut-off" point is at 20 minutes past the hour to ensure that over-water observations from NDBC buoys, C-MAN stations, and Maraks Services mesonet stations.

Products:

Two-dimensional analyses of surface meteorological variables every hour at a 4-km grid increment.

Variables:

surface air temperature

surface dew point temperature

surface (10m AGL) wind velocity

mean sea-level pressure

Format:

Analyses are encoded into WMO general purpose, bit-oriented data exchange format, Gridded Binary (GRIB) using software from the U.S. Dept. of Defense Master Environmental Library.

Time Availability:

GRIB files containing CBLAPS analyses are usually available by 25 minutes past the hour.

Acknowledgments:

We thank John Margraf and Steve Zubrick of NWS Baltimore-Washington WFO for their help in providing surface observations (ASOS, AWOS, AWS) and NCEP model output for CBLAPS as well as format conversion processing for NOS and Maraks Services stations.

We also thank Jay Titlow of Maraks Services, Inc. (www.marakservices.com) for providing real-time surface observations from their automated mesonet for use in CBLAPS.

Appreciation to NOPP and DOD/DTRA for funding to support LAPS testing at NOS/CSDL.

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Revised Friday April 19 2002by OCS Webmaster