[gradsusr] Help locating GFS Data?

[Rick Mann]

Hi. I apologize if I'm not on the right list. I had a heckuva time find anywhere at all to inquire about this.

I'm trying to get GFS wind velocity data for use in predicting balloon flight paths. I have some code that uses GFS data provided by NOAA accessed via NDAP:

	"We use GFS data provided by the NOAA, accessed via NDAP and
	their [NOMADS](http://nomads.ncep.noaa.gov) distribution system. The
	[1.0x1.0 degree data](http://nomads.ncep.noaa.gov/txt_descriptions/GFS_high_resolution_doc.shtml)
	(26 vertical pressure levels) is used for standard predictions,
	and the [0.5x0.5 degree data](http://nomads.ncep.noaa.gov/txt_descriptions/GFS_half_degree_doc.shtml)
	(47 vertical pressure levels) is used for the high definition (HD) predictions."

I can easily find current data in .grb format, but the only stuff I can find accessible via NDAP is no newer than 2010-04:

	http://nomads.ncdc.noaa.gov:80/dods/NCEP_GFS

My main question is: where do I find NDAP access to current GFS data?

A secondary question is, what data format does this code expect, and how do I convince the NDAP server to give that to me?

Sadly, the code I'm using doesn't give any more specific instruction on how to get the wind data than the bit I quoted above. I can tell, by inspecting the code, that it's looking for data in a text file with five comma-separated lines defining a header, comment lines that begin with '#', and subsequent lines that vary. I don't know what the format is called. Here's a bit of it:

header (lat, lat rad, lon, lon rad, time)
numAxes
axisData1
axisData2
axisData3
...


Thanks so much!

-- 
Rick