Let me get this straight. We've had two problems with Satellite
Ground station processing. These people should understand computers
and have the skills and motivation to solve the problems.
On the other hand, every single one of the sleazy, do it on the
cheap, companies have managed to fix their systems? How can this be/
Did the mafia run, illegal toxic waste dumps fix their payroll
systems? Imagine the most marginal industry (some rug merchants who
sell dope out the back of the loading dock), or maybe your state
government workers (I was one once so I'm not picking on state
workers at random.) did all these people fix all their systems and
it's smoood sailing fur-sure?
I can imagine IBM, Exxon, NBC, Lucent, Fidelity Investments, etc.
pulling it off but there are some pretty marginal outfits out there.
This is still a mystery.
-- shuush (Im@in.enough.trouble), January 16, 2000.
As somewhat of a weather nut (particularly tropical weather) I can
attest that both satellite sites and text/model output sites go down
a LOT...and have been for the last 2-3 years, particularly the
university-based ones.
And Hawaii isn't really a "Ground Station"...which implies the main
data/control site for a satellite...that's in Wallops Island Virginia
for Goes 8, for example...the main place where data is received...
It's just one of thousands of sites that put up their own GOES 8-10
satellite pics with their own resolutions and design, etc, based on
the same raw data that everyone else gets.
And most of these University sites are a couple guys, whatever old
computers and free software they could scrounge up, on whatever
leftover money their meteorology department could come up with.
Hawaii and OSU having y2k problems, in the grand scheme of weather
sites coming and going, is not massively notable. I think I have
something on the order of a thousand weather related links on my
browser and there is much duplication of effort among these various
sites. No one is blinded by Hawaii going down or OSU's text stuff
going down.
In fact, while I'd used Lumahai a lot 3-4 years ago, over the last 1-
2 years they'd really been overtaken by other sat sites in speed of
updating a given pic...
If you want something more serious, in 1998-1999, the main NCEP
(National Centers for Environmental Prediction) mainframe that
computes the majority of US weather forecast models was CONSTANTLY
crashing. Mainly because it was an ANCIENT Cray from the late 1980s
beyond its useful life. During this past years' hurricane season
models that the NHC had relied on for forecasting were incredibly
late or simply not run....leading to more reliance on European
models. They were often making a forecast for storms in the latter
half of this past hurricane season with only 1/2 the forecast models
they usually use.
Then, Finally, the Cray went up in flames :-). They had to go to
several months of reduced model runs (not as often, and more "coarse"
resolution.)
The Cray has since been replaced with a new IBM SP, and now there are
more model runs, and faster ones, than when the Cray was working
fine, and to my knowledge there hasn't been a single crash.
Now, THAT all was a big deal and I seriously doubt anyone here
noticed :-)
-- John H Krempasky (johnk@dmv.com), January 16, 2000.
Ron,
Ah, I guess "Rendonite" is a badge I wear with honor. From reading
the archives, ANYONE who had the faintest clue of what they were
talking about, on any subject, was accused of being a government
shill. I take it as a complement now :-)
Overall, for sat shots, I'm sort of partial to the Navy Research Lab
Monterey
http://www.nrlmry.navy.mil/sat_products.html
and http://wwwghcc.msfc.nasa.gov/GOES/
Latter can be a bit erratic but when it's working it rules. Try the
automatic zooms.
-- John H Krempasky (johnk@dmv.com), January 16, 2000.