Effective November 1, 2006 at 1400 UTC – Quantitative
Precipitation Forecast to be Added to the National Digital
Forecast Database as an Experimental Element for Hawaii
On November 1, 2006 at 1400 Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), Quantitative
Precipitation Forecast (QPF) will be added to the National
Digital Forecast Database (NDFD) as an experimental
element for Hawaii . QPF is already available in
the NDFD on an experimental basis for the conterminous U.S.
(CONUS); the 16
pre-defined CONUS subsectors ; and Puerto Rico/Virgin
Islands.
QPF forecasts are issued for six hour periods out to 72 hours.
QPF for Hawaii is available at 2.5 kilometer spatial resolution.
Follow this link for information
on the relationship between QPF and two other NDFD elements
(12-hour Probability of Precipitation (POP12) and weather).
As with all NDFD elements, the experimental QPF element for
Hawaii will be accessible via several methods in various formats:
Partners and customers who want to access QPF for Hawaii via anonymous
ftp may need to update their procedures and scripts.
Detailed information for ftp users is included
below.
For customers who key on the World Meteorological Organization
(WMO) superheading to access NDFD elements, the WMO superheading
for the experimental QPF element for Hawaii will be YISZ98
KWBN.
Customers who use the NDFD
graphical forecasts and the NDFD
XML via web service can use the same methods they currently
use to acquire this new element for Hawaii . The QPF graphics
for Hawaii , as well as all the other NDFD domains, will
be labeled “experimental”.
This implementation was announced in Technical
Information Notice 06-66.
Questions or feedback? Please e-mail nws.ndfd@noaa.gov or
complete a Customer Survey:
Comments and feedback on the experimental QPF element for
Hawaii will be accepted through
January 1, 2007.
Other useful NDFD web pages:
Instructions for FTP Users:
At 1400 UTC on September 6, 2006 , QPF for Hawaii will
be added to the anonymous ftp subdirectory containing experimental
NDFD elements for Hawaii for Days 1-3 ( ftp://tgftp.nws.noaa.gov/SL.us008001/ST.expr/DF.gr2/DC.ndfd/AR.hawaii/VP.001-003 ):
The file name for the QPF GRIB2 file within the subdirectory will
be “ds.qpf.bin”.
NOTE: Since QPF is only issued through 72 hours, it will not
be included in the Days
4-7 subdirectory for Hawaii .
Partners and customers who want to access the experimental
QPF element for Hawaii from NDFD via anonymous
ftp may need to update their procedures and scripts.
Relationship between QPF and other NDFD
elements:
The relationship of QPF to the 12-hour Probability of Precipitation
(POP12) element will be that a non-zero QPF will have a corresponding
non-zero POP12. A POP12 of 50 percent or greater requires a
non-zero QPF in one or both corresponding 6-hour QPF periods.
The relationship of QPF to a precipitating weather element
in NDFD will be that a non-zero QPF will have a corresponding
precipitation weather type in the corresponding weather element
in NDFD.
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www.nws.noaa.gov 
