Wx question

[Toby]

Does anyone know why, when I pick up the Boston area forecast with the synopsis and clouds/weather, there is always an entry for Nebraska? The listing will include such locations as Rhode Island, Massachusetts, North Central New York, South Central New York, Extreme Southeastern New York, and then there will be a line that says "Nebraska, New York." Or Nebraska will be lumped in with other areas of New York. There is no Nebraska, NY, that I know of.

 

[Brian Austin]

Does anyone know why, when I pick up the Boston area forecast with the synopsis and clouds/weather, there is always an entry for Nebraska? The listing will include such locations as Rhode Island, Massachusetts, North Central New York, South Central New York, Extreme Southeastern New York, and then there will be a line that says "Nebraska, New York." Or Nebraska will be lumped in with other areas of New York. There is no Nebraska, NY, that I know of.

Could "NE" be NorthEast?

 

[Toby]

Could "NE" be NorthEast?

It's spelled out, "Nebraska."

 

[Brian Austin]

It's spelled out, "Nebraska."

What service are you using to get the weather? It's possible that an interpreter is taking NE and applying "Nebraska" instead of "northeast".

 

[poadeleted3]

I think that is Northeast. The system isn't sure what it's trying to translate when it converts the FA into plain English. I always see it for PA. It's also got issues deciding whether WV is "wave" or West Virginia.

Remainder of Southeast New York ... sky clear. 9am EST (14Z) 4,000 feet
scattered. Wind northwesterly gusting to 25 knots. 11am EST (16Z)
occasional 4,000 feet broken, tops 8,000 feet, north Hancock [HNK VOR].
Outlook: VFR.
Nebraska, New York ... 6,000 feet to 8,000 feet overcast, tops flight level
240. 1pm EST (18Z) through 3pm EST (20Z), becoming 3,500 feet overcast.
Occasional visibility 4 statute miles in snow. Outlook: marginal VFR due
to ceilings.

Pennsylvania
West ... 9,000 feet scattered to broken, tops 11,000 feet. 10am EST (15Z)
through 12 noon EST (17Z), becoming 5,000 feet broken. Outlook: VFR.
Central ... 8,000 feet to 10,000 feet scattered. Outlook: VFR.
Nebraska ... sky clear. 10am EST (15Z) through 12 noon EST (17Z), becoming
5,000 feet broken, tops 7,000 feet. Outlook: VFR.
Southeast ... sky clear. 9am EST (14Z) scattered cirrus. Wind
northwesterly gusting to 25 knots. Outlook: VFR.


Coastal waters
North Nantucket MA [ACK] ...
{northeast, Nebraska} Kennebunk [ENE VOR] - 150 miles east of Nantucket MA
[ACK] line ... 2,000 feet broken, 5,000 feet broken, tops flight level
240. Until 10am EST (15Z) to 12 noon EST (17Z) wind northerly 25 knots
/ occasional visibility 3 to 5 statute miles in snow mist. Outlook:
marginal VFR due to ceilings.

 

[Greebo]

I think Joe's got it - compare the FAA text to the plain english text - it probably says, NE, NY

 

[Toby]

Thanks, guys. I've been wondering about that forever. I use DUATS, btw.

 

[kath]

What I want to know is why a weather briefing from DUATS (for the Boston area) always includes a thunderstorm report from Kansas City, MO.

--Kath

 

[Greebo]

Are you including adverse wx conditions like severe weather, tropical storm warnings, etc, and ATC and FDCG notams?

Those are not filtered by your location.

 

[RotaryWingBob]

Toby -

My primary instructor insisted that I always use raw rather than translated weather. Old habits die hard, so I still use raw only. I've seen too many instances where something, so to speak, got lost in the translation ...

 

[Toby]

Toby -

My primary instructor insisted that I always use raw rather than translated weather. Old habits die hard, so I still use raw only. I've seen too many instances where something, so to speak, got lost in the translation ...

Yes, it's true. And when I went to the NOAA weather site, sure enough, it was meant to be northeastern NY. It's good practice to read the raw text, anyway. Once you understand it, you can actually absorb it more quickly than all those lines and lines of spelled-out text.

 

[gibbons]

Toby -

My primary instructor insisted that I always use raw rather than translated weather.

Ah, but if they would simply transmit the weather in plain english instead of these cryptic abbreviations, there wouldn't be any problem would there? We don't live at 300 baud anymore.

Chip

 

[Paul Allen]

I'm getting the same thing that Toby is getting.
OH LE
NWRN/N CNTRL OH...SKC OR SCT CI. 06Z SCT150. SCT CI. OTLK...VFR.
LE/NERN OH...BKN060 TOP 100. BECMG 0709 BKN030 OVC050. WDLY SCT
SHSN. OTLK...MVFR CIG SHSN.
SRN OH...OVC100 TOP FL270 NR OH RVR SWRN AND S CNTRL OH...SCT100.
BKN-OVC CI. OTLK...VFR.
What's the LE next to OH?

 

[Arnold]

I'm getting the same thing that Toby is getting.
OH LE
NWRN/N CNTRL OH...SKC OR SCT CI. 06Z SCT150. SCT CI. OTLK...VFR.
LE/NERN OH...BKN060 TOP 100. BECMG 0709 BKN030 OVC050. WDLY SCT
SHSN. OTLK...MVFR CIG SHSN.
SRN OH...OVC100 TOP FL270 NR OH RVR SWRN AND S CNTRL OH...SCT100.
BKN-OVC CI. OTLK...VFR.
What's the LE next to OH?

I do believe that is Lake Erie, but I can't give you the cite at the moment.

 

[RotaryWingBob]

Ah, but if they would simply transmit the weather in plain english instead of these cryptic abbreviations, there wouldn't be any problem would there? We don't live at 300 baud anymore.

Chip

Yeah, but that would be far too easy for the gov'mint to do

I seem to recall that they used these cryptic forms because everything was transmitted via teletype. When's the last time anybody saw a teletype machine? 1980? 1970?

 

[Greebo]

Yeah, but that would be far too easy for the gov'mint to do

I seem to recall that they used these cryptic forms because everything was transmitted via teletype. When's the last time anybody saw a teletype machine? 1980? 1970?

In the government weather offices? ;-)

Seriously tho - this just highlights how long it takes to get the Gummint to update systems.

One might almost argue that this particular function helps make a case for privatising *SOME* aspects of aviation services, almost...

 

[BruceAir]

A few months ago, I had an email exchange with the webmaster of National Weather Service site. I gently complained about the all-uppercase format of NWS reports, forecasts, forecast discussions, and the like, pointing out that Carolingian minuscule (i.e., lowercase letters) has been in wide use since around the 9th century (in the West, at least--previously, the Greeks and Romans generally wrote in all uppercase letters without punctuation or spacing, sort of like the IM style young people seem to favor these days) and that the teletype hit 30-50 words per minute in 1915.

Why, I asked, couldn't the NWS take advantage of this breakthrough technology and stop virtually shouting its information in all caps and with obscure abbreviations?

The webmaster patiently explained that international agreements require the use lowest-common-demoninator technology so that everyone can read, for example, the latest METARs from Albania.

 

[Greebo]

Interesting - but I suspect that even Albanian sites use ASCII, which really *IS* a technological lowest common denominator, which supports both Lower and Upper case.

 

[4CornerFlyer]

What I want to know is why a weather briefing from DUATS (for the Boston area) always includes a thunderstorm report from Kansas City, MO.

--Kath

NOAA's national Storm Prediction Center is based near there, so all severe thunderstorm and tornado watches and warnings issued there show up on a DUAT briefing with that identifier. You can select AWW as the weather type if that's what you want. For some reason DUAT includes severe weather for the entire US, even if your briefing route is nowhere near it. Look at the state identifiers at the top of the waning to see if it has anything to do with your route.
www.spc.noaa.gov

The same phenomenon occurs during tropical cyclone season, when you'll see hurricane advisories come from the Nat'l Hurricane Center in Miami, even if you put in a briefing request for Maine.

Jon