How the Archive Data is Saved

    All archived files on this web page are formatted with names that are date, time stamped for easy reference. 

    For example the 4km satellite picture .gif file from GOES10 that was downloaded at 0359z  February 25, 2008 would be named wv4_4km080225-0359z.gif  breaks down as follows:  wv4_4km is the name, 08 is the year, 02 is the month, 25 is the day, -0359z is the UTC time and .gif is the file type and in this case a picture file. 

    This makes for long file names but in a directory they sort chronologically with the oldest files at the top and the newest ones added at the bottom. This makes for easy locating and sorting of files by date & time.

 Surface Weather Station Observations

    The six weather stations under this header, update their data on the web in the last 10 minutes of every hour.  The current html data is gathered ten minutes later by us, stripped of html formatting, and saved hourly, in the directory signified by the station name ie (KSEA).  These current files are named   sea.wx0 (for full data) or sea.wx1 for (summary data).   See  .wx0   &   .wx1 for file format information.  The sea part of the file name is changed to match the particular weather station you are observing.  The .wx0 & .wx1 files are formatted and are ready to be opened in programs like Microsoft EXCEL without changes, or with just a simple text editor. 

    You can associate these files to EXCEL in Windows 98 in the Start menu under Settings / Folder Options in File Types Tab or in Windows XP in the Start menu under Settings / Control Panel / Folder Options in File Types Tab

    This file is then name/date/time stamped for saving in the .wx0 or wx1 format.  Example from Salem KSLE :  sle080225-0359z.wx0 

    Daily, Weekly and Monthly data is saved in sub directories listed under each of the six stations.

    Daily and Weekly data files are 7 days long.  Daily data is saved every hour.  Weekly files are saved every Saturday just after midnight PST time.  Monthly files are 31 days long, and are saved a few minutes after midnight on the first day of the following month.   Daily, Weekly and Monthly files are saved under sub directories listed under each stations call letters.

GOES 10

    The 4km and 2km satellite gif files are downloaded every 30 minutes and saved in the goes/4km/ with a name/date/time stamp. The 4km gif file is also processed to retrieve temperature data from various points on the picture.  This data is formatted and saved in a file called wv4_degc.txt and appended every 30 minutes and saved for 7 days and fully archived off site on my home computer.

US Weather Balloons

    Presently we are processing the two types of balloon data from KUIL Quillayute, WA and KSLE Salem, OR.  Text data and Skew plots are posted every 12 hours by the weather service.  The text data is processed to determine possible conditions of temperature/humidity changes that can indicate signal ducting.  This data is then graphed and combined with the published Skew graphs to make our composite file for KUIL for example bln_uil080225-0359z.png  in the same name/date/time stamp format described earlier.  ( a .png file is like a .gif file and was chosen due to its small file size for archiving.)

Radar & Isobar

    These are just being downloaded as available and renamed with name/date/time stamp and archived for reference.  The radar images are saved every 30 minutes and the Isobar surface pressure files every 3 hours.

AER

Linked information but not archived.