[McIDAS #HWD-204740]: Watch boxes not plotting on McIDAS

Hi Gilbert,

> Watch boxes or counties are not plotting on McIDAS. Warnings are.

> Further information on this error:

> From the pull-down menu, it will not work, because I believe it is 
> plotting watch boxes by default instead of counties, which is still not 
> fixed.

You are correct. The MCGUI selection widget for weather watch boxes needs
to be enhanced to allow the user to be able to select how the watches will
be plotted. The options that WWDISP currently provides are:

PLOt=BOX | plot severe thunderstorm and tornado watches as box outlines
   =COUNTY | plot watches as county outlines
   =NBOX height | plot watches as box outlines with watch number in
                  center of each box using specified pixel height
                  (def=NBOX 7)

> Boxes will not plot in command mode, either. If you plot them using
> PLO=COU, then it will work.

I will do some testing to verify that we are not missing something here,
and, if not, will send a message alerting SSEC to the problem.

> One more thing. Can we make tornado watches and warnings use the red color 
> to plot by default instead of blue? Red has been the standard, and 
> although I am using a local color palette to override this, I think it 
> should be standard fare.

> What do you think?

I will send SSEC your request to change the default color levels
to use for the various types of displays pointing out that most users
will not want to create their own custom graphics palette, and the colors
currently selected when using the default (graphics.grx) palette do not
conform to standard use. Until (and if) SSEC makes a change, you will
be forced to continue using your own custom graphic palette.

By the way, I agree with your desire to have the colors changed mainly
since WWDISP does not provide a keyword that allows the user to specify
use of a graphic palette other than the one already associated with a
frame. However, if the GU= keyword was a WWDISP option, I would be more
in favor of leaving it up to the user to change/provide his/her own
palette. The main reason for my position is the possibility that a
user is running a McIDAS session with a small number of possible graphic
levels (like 8 instead of 16).

> *******************************************************************************
> Gilbert Sebenste                                                     ********
> (My opinions only!)                                                  ******
> Staff Meteorologist, Northern Illinois University                      ****
> E-mail: address@hidden                                  ***
> web: http://weather.admin.niu.edu                                      **
> *******************************************************************************

> From address@hidden  Thu Mar  9 09:58:05 2006

> Gilbert has informed me of a change in the way the SPC weather watches are
> being tranmitted and yet I am unsure of what to do to get those plotting
> out correctly. I was not aware of any changes recently, but then again, I
> do not know when they stopped plotting anyway.

> Any help would be greatly appreciated.

> Paul