#15 GHG Monitor Issues / Issuing Hazards

[Michael Foland]

So I went to issue a Blizzard Watch to see if it would go into the GHG Monitor. I went into both the regular mode (which I always use for forecasting, and would use if I generated products on my own personal site), and the Practice Mode. Upon issued said product in both modes, the GHG Monitor would not update for text or the map.. However, oddly enough, a default configuration file loaded somehow on practice, but not regular ops.

Issuing a Convective watch.. I was looking at your edits and it said to put in an ETN number for the watch/storm.. so I did, and went to do that.. I get a Yellow alert that says:

ReplaceGriddedData aborted for hazTOA1000 SFCILN blah... Invalid DiscreteKey found in Grid. Key Position is 1 Key is: _____

Not sure what else is going on here.

[Michael Foland]

ALSO -- I know how to edit the alert templates so they don't say National Weather Service ;) I learned on the much older version of GFE that was located at gfesuite.noaa.gov ;)

[Mike Romberg]

Yea. I've bumped into the ETN number thing to playing around and trying a thunderstorm watch with a WCN. And just creating an ETN out of thin air with the GFE editor did not work for me either. It seems the code may be checking that the ETN is a valid number that already exists in the active table. If the number is not in the active table it gets rejected. That is my working theory.

I think this is caused by certain products being in different fifedoms.  For example SPC is the one who puts out thunderstorm watches in a product the gfe does not create.   They create the actual watch and ETN number.  Not the gfe.

  In the past this SPC product came in over the wire and was decoded by something (code may be still in the tree). And the ETN number was added to the active table.   Of course here no products at all are comming in and being decoded.   So, these ETN numbers are not getting into the active table.

    I may be able to short circuit this (when I find where the code is that checks for it) and just allow one to fat finger in any old ETN number you want.   The whole VTEC system is fairly messey and spread all over the place.  So, I'll have to find a good spot to do this.

[Michael Foland]

When the old version of GFE worked, you could create a Severe or Tornado Watch in either mode with an ETN number... You could only transmit in Practice though. Would be nice for that part to transmit locally and go into the active table. I'd still use these as my own without nws wording maybe for a more personal forecast. I do grid forecasting as this works in official mode. You have to Save the grid and publish to official to make the png image work

[Michael Foland]

Also as far as the vtec table name... should somehow be official or something... since the Practice table works only in Practice mode... I was researching this. When we click Operational I'm assuming that would be the table it relies on as well then? However, GHG does not work in practice either

[Michael Foland]

Any updates to GHG Monitor? In the new version the GHG monitor does not work with showing the products nor counties in said product... Not sure what's going on there.

[ExtremeWX]

How do you actually issue the hazard in the Format Product menu without it saying NO HAZARDS TO REPORT?

[Michael Foland]

You have to click the hazard you want to issue under Hazards, then click the counties you want to include. Save the grids and forecast, then launch the format launcher :)

[ExtremeWX]

Okay, so I did that and I am still getting the same error of No Hazards to Report. Please watch this video and tell me if I am doing anything wrong here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTo0_fV_njc

[Michael Foland]

I forgot one step! Gotta publish to official lol. Also make sure you are in practice mode :) Then the products will do a "transmit". Then when you take counties out, it'll show cancelled for and remains valid for.

[Michael Foland]

PS... I run a weather website. We don't use GFE, but we have an interface we built that we forecast the weather. Check this out.. www.usawx.org

[ExtremeWX]

Yeah, the only thing I can do is actually create the hazard, save the forecast and then product formatter. Public to OFC is greyyed out.

[ExtremeWX]

Wait, what version of the GFE are you using? that might be it!

[Michael Foland]

I can't remember what menu it's under... if it's Grids or Products.. It's been ages lol.

[ExtremeWX]

Yeah im on both grids and products and all I have is Save Forecast or Publish to Official the publish to official is blurred.

[Michael Foland]

The publish is blurred out??? wow!! Might have to write a support ticket on this site for it.

[ExtremeWX]

Yeah, its weird.

[Michael Foland]

Personal question... You good with forecasting? If so... check out my website... www.usawx.org :) We hire volunteers and would love to have you!!!

[Mike Romberg]

The 'publish to official' menu item will be greyed out when the gfe is started in either PRACTICE or TEST modes.

Normally, all products are generated from the offical database. The offical database is considered "The Forecast". When grids are saved they are written to the forecast database. The forecast database is a work in progress. No data from it are used to generate products. You move data from the forecast database to the offical database by publishing it.

The idea behind PRACTICE and TEST modes were to generate products directly from the forecast database. Also, in these two modes the ability to publish to the offical database was disabled. This was done on purpose.

 I'd recommend that you not use PRACTICE or TEST modes for now.  I've not tested either of these modes in a while and have no idea if they work correctly or not.

[ExtremeWX]

[Mike Romberg]

It should no longer be necessary to be in practivce mode to have the transmit be a simulated transmit. I'm reasonably sure I hardwired all transmits to be simulated as (of course) there is no way for them to be any other kind in this GFE.

[SWICFlint]

Would you mind posting a product that you've made? Something like a Winter Storm Watch.

[Michael Foland]

I'd love GFE to be able transfer grids via ftp to a website, or a product. That would be pretty cool. I'd love to create forecasts in GFE.

[Mike Romberg]

Point your web browser at http://localhost:8044/ Specifically: http://localhost:8044/rest

Here you can use the machine name the ifpServer is running on for localhost and the port (if it is not the 8044 or 8042 default).

The ifpserver *is* a http server.  The gfe and every other client comminicates with it via this web interface.  So, one could write scripts in python/perl/ruby or whatever you want to download (or even upload) grids to it.

  This is how I would pull grids out of the server for use elsewhere.  The ifpServer supports a few formats now (raw, zip, xml, netcdf).   Just navigate through the rest interface (it is sorta self documenting) and click on the links to download grids.  If you can click it with a browser you can also script it.  The whole interface is http based.

[Michael Foland]

I remember back the last time I used it.. I had to use Practice, and used the publish to get the products to want to generate. Wayyyy back in the day before this GFE, in Practice the GHG monitor worked. If I could code it, I'd love to have the database save on my website to product products.. well at the very least the ZFP, grid images, and maybe the AFD. I remembered how at one time, I edited the files to get rid of the NWS wording haha.

[ExtremeWX]

Yeah it would be really nice to be able to get the text product to load. But, have gotten no response yet.