NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE TELETYPE ACCESS The Rowan County Emergency Services has interfaced a telephone modem to the National Weather Service's main Weather Teletype Line so that anyone with a PC and a modem can access the System for real-time weather information direct from the NWS State Headquarters in Raleigh or direct from any other National Weather Service office, such as the National Hurricane Center in Miami, the National Severe Storm Headquarters in Kansas City or the Tornado Forecast and Research Center in Oklahoma City. The NWS maintains a teletype circuit that goes to to their regional offices, radio and television stations, local and state government emergency operation centers and military bases throughout the state and Country. Through an Z-80 device manufactured by HAL Communications, Rowan County now has the capability to allow anybody with a modem and a PC to monitor this circuit and to pull weather information out of the HAL's memory. Once a person is into the system, they can monitor the weather line in real-time or recall weather information that may have come down the line previous to the access. There is a 30K common buffer for previous forecasts, good for storing about 18 hours of information, and a 4K priority buffer for emergency information, bulletins and severe weather warnings and watches. The priority buffer ususally retains information for about 48 hours. Both buffers are first-in, first-out. The system is accessed by dialing 704-633-8024 at 1200 baud, 8 bits, even parity and no stop bits. The system is completely menu driven, requires no special knowledge, registration or password and is open to anyone. The system is auto-answer on first ring and you will get a brief welcome message and what is called the "Short Directory" when you first get into the system. This short directory is a brief listing of the weather forecast "products" that are resident in memory at that time. The NWS is sending different information down the line almost all the time and they refer to each different piece of information as a "product" The product is uniquely identified in each message and the product code, when understood, describes what the information, or broadcast, contains. The short directory that greets a caller on sign-in tells what is in the two buffers. After the short directory, the system prompts you with the time and date and a ">" prompt. There is a help function and typing " H " (no quote marks" at the prompt will give you a brief summary of commands. It is a very passive system in that you can only retrieve information, not input or engage in an exchange like you can this bulletin board. To monitor the line and see what is being broadcast from the NWS, type an " M " at the prompt. You will then go into the monitor mode and if the system is active, will see some information. Keep in mind that the NWS now broadcasts in the Baudot language at 75 baud so the monitor function will seem slow to you. Also remember that the line is idle a good part of the time so you may see no activity in the monitor mode. The exit the monitor mode, you can strike any key and the ">" prompt will come back at you. The funny-looking product names need some explanation. The short directory will list about 25 or 30 files with names like RDULFPCLT 0114 or CLTCLICLT 2314, etc. The first three letters of the product name indicate where the product came from, i.e., RDU indicates the broadcast originated at the Raleigh/Durham Office of the NWS, CLT indicates the product came from Charlotte, etc. There are too many origination codes to list here but you will soon be able to recognize them when you see them. The second three letters in the file name indicate what the product contains and again, there are hundreds of different ones but the LFP indicates a "Local Forecast Product" and the CLI means the "Climatological Report". Of particular interest is the LFP, the EFP (Extended Forecast Product), the REC (Recreational Report) and especially the SVS (Severe Storm), SVR (Severe Weather), TOR (Tornado) and TWO or TWI (Tropical Weather Outlook or Information). The last two or three letters of the product name indicate where the product is intended to go or the areas of most interest for that product. NC means (of course) North Carolina and shows that the product ending in NC is of interest or applicable state-wide. CLT, GSO, AVL and RDU are self-explanitory. The four digits after the product name is the time the product was recieved. In summary, then, the product names you see in the short directory on sign-on tell you where the product came from, what is in it and where it is intended to be of the most interest, and the time it was sent from the Weather Service. To recall a product (read a file) send an " R " at the ">" prompt (without quotes) in either upper or lower case and, because it is an in-key routine, no is needed. Another prompt will come back at you. You can then give the product name in one of several ways. You can enter the whole product name (RDUEFPNC), or the type of product (EFP) which will give you the most recent product with that coding, or just the time (2135). A carriage return is necessary here because product names can be either 8 or 9 characters. When the product has been sent, you will get a date/time prompt ( 03-07-87 21:34 EST > ) and you are ready to read another product, to monitor the line or to sign-off. One exception to the above is the Zone Forecast ( RDUZFPNC ). It is broadcast 6 times per day and is broken down into 18 zones state-wide and is quite lengthy, usually about 1800 bytes or about 1.5 minutes at 1200 baud. (Once you start a product, there is no way to escape or abort). To see only the part of the state you are interested in, you can specify, on the prompt line, which area you want to see by giving the product name, a slant sign and the zone you want, i. e. RDUZFPNC/NC07, which will return only the zone 7 forecast out of the entire state forecast. The northern foothills of North Carolina is zone NC07 and I can't begin to tell you where the other zones are or what they cover. The NWS has a map I can try to get for people who are interested. The NWS sends over 400 products per 24 hour period down the line. We are saving only 27 of those and putting them into memory but they are the ones of most interest to the Rowan County area and of importance to emergency responders and planners. In the monitor mode, everything can be seen but only 27 of the products will go into memory for later recall. At present, we are saving: RDUEFPNC Extended Forecast, North Carolina RDULFPCL Local Forecast, Charlotte Area RDUZFPNC Zone Forecast, North Carolina RDUSFPNC State Forecast, North Carolina RDUSTPNC State Temperature and Precipitation ***SVS*** Any Severe Weather Statement ***SVR*** Any Severe Thunderstorm Warning ***FLS*** Any Flash Flood Statement ***FFW*** Any Flash Flood Warning ***TOR*** Any Tornado Warning RDUCLICLT Daily Climatological Report, Charlotte ***PNS*** Any Public Information Statement ***RER*** Any Record-Setting Weather Event ***REC*** Any Recreational Weather Statement or Forecast MKCNWX(1-3) National Weather Summary RDUAOARDU Agricultural Weather Outlook MIATWOMIA Tropical Weather Outlook MIATCEMIA Tropical Cyclone Position Estimate MIASPAAT(1-5) Public Subtropical Storm Advisory MIASPAT(1-5) Public Tropical Storm Advisory ***PHS*** Any Post-Hurricane Statement RDUSLS0-9 Severe Local Storm Watch RDUREFRDU Administrative and System Information Some of these products are seasonal and will be on only during certain times of the year, others (SFP, STP) are transmitted hourly and yet others (EFP, LFP, ZFP) are broadcast from 2 to 8 times per 24 hour period. I have the full product list (over 400 products) if anyone would like to see it or request a special product be saved, such as another state forecast, beach forecasts during summer, etc. Leave a note on this BBS for me or, in the Weather System, see the help menu on how to leave me a message. However, a message left for me in the system sometimes gets buried in the local print-outs and I may never see it. There are some other features in the system, such as a long directory, a listing of what products are meant to be saved, etc., but the above will get you up and running and you can go to the help function " H " once you get familiar with it. To exit, simply type " B " at the > prompt. Please use descretion with it, it is very busy and a lot of emergency responders rely on it, especially during emergency weather situations. Have fun, enjoy it, I hope it proves as convenient and as valuable to you as it does to us and please let me know if you want something special on it or if we can help in any other way. 73 de John, WD4FFX, in Statesville NC (Office Phone 704-878-3029)