GFS Grib-2 files

[Wesley Ebisuzaki]

Arlindo, Eric,

> I have noticed something very strange about the gdf files that are
> generated for GFS files of type 'gfs.t??z.pgrb2bf??'. I have never
> used these particular GFS files and I'm not sure what they're for.
> (The 0.5 degree GFS grib-2 files I am familiar with are
> 'gfs.t??z.pgrb2f??'). In the gdf file, there are 37 pressure levels
> specified in the zdef line, every 25 mb from 1000 to 100 mb...
Yes, I also noticed that one set files was "strange" and the other was
"reasonable".  Someone mentioned
that if you combined the "strange" and "reasonable" files, you got the
complete output from
the model.   Was a casual comment, so it may or may not be true.

Stefan Gofferje wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Arlindo da Silva schrieb:
>
>> I am also very confused by all these different files; NCEP's FTP site
>> could use a README file. Does anyone out there understand the
>> difference/purpose of the different files under
>>
>>     ftp://ftpprd.ncep.noaa.gov/pub/data/nccf/com/gfs/prod/gfs.2008041806
>>
>> Some of the files are mentioned here:
>>
>>    http://www.nco.ncep.noaa.gov/pmb/products/gfs/
>>
>> but not all.  Where could we send user feedback to NCEP requesting a
>> README file for the FTP site?
>>
>
> According to Wesley Ebisuzaki, actually the "official" production source
> is http://www.ftp.ncep.noaa.gov
>  .
>
I didn't say that.  GFS forecasts are available from many different sites.
If any site were "official", that would be the TOC.  Stefan is referring to
another factor which is not important to this thread.

> I lately received some very interesting statements from Wesley about
> where to get the files from and why and I guess, he also is the right
> person to ask about other topics reagrding NOAA GFS files.
>
Not really.  I've steering people off nomadX.ncep.noaa.gov to
http://www.ftp.ncep.noaa.gov.  BTW that is the same machine as
ftp://ftpprd.ncep.noaa.gov but different access protol.

                 Wesley


> And - if I may point that out - he is a really nice, friendly and
> helpful person!
>
> Just in case, I CC this mail to him also.
>
> Greetings from Finland,
> Stefan Gofferje
>
> --
> Since light travels faster than sound, is that why some people appear
> bright until you hear them speak?
>