[gradsusr] NOMADS download speeds

[Joey Woodson]

Is there any way to speed up downloads from the NOMADS server (
http://nomads.ncep.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/filter_gfs_hd.pl)? I currently run a
site that spends around 6-8 seconds per forecast hour generating maps.
Having said that, it is quite frustrating to see download times for 1 MB of
GRIB data exceed 10 seconds at times. I currently use 4 wget sessions in
parallel to handle the downloading, and I only sleep for 2 seconds instead
of 10 when polling the NOMADS server to check when the next file is
available, so as you can see I am very speed-oriented. Is there any way to
download faster, or is partial-downloading (downloading part of the GRIB
file, generating the relevant maps for the first part while the rest
downloads, then generating the maps for the rest) the fastest way of doing
this?

Joey
http://www.instantweathermaps.com
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