WindWMO data questions

[Stephen Munday]

Regarding the max wind speed (WindWMO) data in v03r08 of your Allstorms data set…

I assume the value -999 signifies “no data”, but what do values 0, -1 and -2 signify?

I assume accuracy of available data explains why values are rounded off to the nearest 10 kts in the mid/late 1800’s and then to the nearest 5 kts afterwards. Why are wind speeds for some storms (but not all) suddenly rounded to the nearest 1 kt starting in ~1985?

Thanks,
Steve Munday

[Stephen Munday]

The basin abbreviations are easy to figure out, but what do the sub-basin abbreviations stand for in the Allstorms data set?

• AS = 

• BB = 

• CP = Central Pacific?

• CS = 

• EA = East Australia?

• GM = 

• MM = 

• NA = 

• WA = West Australia?

Thanks,

Steve Munday

[Ken Knapp]

Hi

Sorry about the new sub-basins. We just added the capability to identify the current sub-basin for a few new ones using their definitions from marineregions.org.

I have annotated the basin names below

On Wednesday, February 10, 2016 at 4:21:26 PM UTC-5, Munday wrote:

but what do the sub-basin abbreviations stand for in the Allstorms data set?

• AS = Arabian Sea

• BB = Bay of Bengal

• CP = Central Pacific?

• CS = Caribbean Sea

• EA = East Australia?

• GM = Gulf of Mexico

• MM = missing

• NA = North Atlantic (i.e., not in GM or CS)

• WA = West Australia?

[Shi Shen]

I also have the same question of Munday's first question. What does the -1 -2 and 0 means?. 

在 2016年2月13日星期六 UTC+8上午4:59:17，Ken Knapp写道：

[Ken Knapp - NOAA Federal]

On Thu, Dec 22, 2016 at 9:13 PM, Shi Shen <shens...@gmail.com> wrote:

What does the [wind value of] -1 -2 and 0 means?. 

Hi

Thanks for the question and sorry for missing that part of question in the original email.

In short, all the values are missing wind speeds. 

A longer explanation ...

The differences are (mostly) inadvertent programming differences:

* -999 - is a typical missing value that we used in many of the other parameters

* -2 - a missing value that the Australian BoM reports in their files, so we reported the same value (again, we try to report values as reported by the agency where possible).

* -1 - a missing value that is reported for Australian and New Zealand data (whereas BoM reported -2, the -1 is a value we assign when the wind speed is not reported.

* 0 - another value reported for missing wind speed data.

Sorry for any confusion. This is something we look at when we evaluate data formats for the next release.

Best regards-

-Ken

--

Ken Knapp, Ph.D.

Meteorologist, Center for Weather and Climate

NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information

formerly NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center

E/NE31

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