20040609: importing and contouring data on GOES imagery (cont.)

>From: Owen Cooper <address@hidden>
>Organization: Aeronomy Laboratory/NOAA
>Keywords: 200406080008.i5808gtK000586 McIDAS SCHEMA Flexpart

Hi Owen,

>Okay, I'm getting closer.
>Just a couple of more questions.

>1) Can I enter the date into my text file in the format yyyymmdd?  This 
>format is more convenient that yyyyddd.

I don't think so.  The valid date formats for McIDAS in general can
be seen from the output of ARGHELP:

ARGHELP
 ...
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Valid McIDAS date argument format:
   [+-]yyyyddd , [+-]yyyy/mm/dd , [+-]mm/dd , [+-]dd/mon/yyyy , [+-]dd/mon ,
                 [+-]yyyy-mm-dd , [+-]mm-dd , [+-]dd-mon-yyyy , [+-]dd-mon

   where:  yyyy = year           (def=current year & century)
           mm   = month          (def=current month)
           mon  = calendar month (>=3 chars)
           dd   = day of month   (required)
           ddd  = day of year    (required)
           '/'  = today's date

Acceptable Forms:  [+-]yyyy/mm/dd  , [+-]mm/dd  , [+-]/mm/dd  , [+-]yyyyddd ,
                   [+-]dd/mon/yyyy , [+-]dd/mon , [+-]dd/mon/ , [+-]ddd     ,
           [+-]/ , [+-]/dd         , [+-]dd/    , [+-]//dd    , [+-]dd//
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 ...


>     So far I haven't had any luck with yyyymmdd. I'm not sure what unit 
>to enter, I tried ymd but this is just a guess.

I don't see yyyymmdd as a valid option, and I havn't tried other
formats with TXT2MD.  It may be that it doesn't like any non numeric
values in a date.

>     When I list the contents of the MD file the date is reported as 
>**************

Yup, it didn't work.

>      I tried entering the date as yyyy/mm/dd for example 2004/06/09 for 
>today. I used UNIT=ymd (again just a guess).

I don't think that this is correct either.

>      The date value that I get using PTLIST is 4161.00 which appears to 
>some abreviated form of yyyyddd

The value is being incorrectly interpreted.

>2) What is the significance of the SCALE term when creating a SCHEMA?  

It says how many significant digits to save.  All values in a McIDAS
MD file (and GRID file) are saved as scaled integers.  The scale factor
is the power of 10 that the value gets multiplied by before it is
truncated into an integer.  So, it is the number of significant digits
to keep for real values.

>Right now I have CO set to SCALE=2 and the other keys are set to 
>SCALE=4, although I'm not sure why.

LAT and LON are usually scaled by 10**4 so that the positioning is
accurate enough.  You have to base your SCALE value for the data
based on the data's range.

>thanks

Sorry I couldn't be of more help in the date format area.  I would
have to do some testing to figure out exactly which date formats
are supported by TXT2MD.  I didn't have time to do this today...

Cheers,

Tom
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