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The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) Agent is a data loading agent available in EQuIS Live used for obtaining weather data from the NOAA NCDC FTP site (ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/noaa).

 

 

Adding Station(s)

 

Before using the NOAA NCDC Agent, add one or more stations to the DT_LOGGER table:

1.Execute the equis.get_ids stored procedure to get a new LOGGER_ID, or add the station (DT_LOGGER row) in EQuIS Professional.

2.Set LIVE_DATA_SOURCE to NOAA-NCDC.

3.Set LOGGER_CODE to a station ID. A station ID can be searched for in the NOAA-NCDC station list at ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/noaa/isd-history.csv.

For example, 724940-23234 (USAF = 724940, WBAN = 23234, separated by a dash) for the San Francisco International Airport. (You can find the country abbreviations at ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/noaa/country-list.txt).

4.Set STATUS_FLAG to 'A' to activate the logger.

 

 

Loading Data

 

The NOAA NCDC Agent or Historical Data Loader can be run as a scheduled EQuIS Information Agent (EIA), at the desired frequency, to automatically load data as often as needed.

 

The NOAA NCDC Agent or Historical Data Loader can also be run in EQuIS Professional or Enterprise (using the EZView widget) to load the data manually, without having to schedule an EIA.

 

The NOAA NCDC Agent will load data for all loggers with LIVE_DATA_SOURCE set to NOAA-NCDC. When the report is run initially, the agent will retrieve values from a logger's site (DT_LOGGER.LOGGER_CODE) for the past one month. If data has been previously loaded for that logger, the agent will request data from the logger's most recent date (in DT_LOGGER_DATUM.DATUM_UTC_DT) until today's date.

 

The NOAA NCDC Historical Data Loader allows the user to select the loggers and date range, and has the following input parameters:

•Logger(s) – Select the stations for which to load data. If no stations are selected, the agent will load data for all NOAA NCDC stations.

•Date Range – Select a date range; choose from recent, period, or start and end dates. The recent option works the same way as the NOAA NCDC Agent. If the period option is selected, a period must be specified in ISO-8601 duration format. If the start and end dates option is selected, start and end dates must be specified.

•Update existing values? – Check this box to update existing EQuIS Live data values.

 

 

The NOAA NCDC Agent or Historical Data Loader adds a DT_LOGGER_SERIES row for each of the following series. However, some of the stations may not have one or more of the series listed below, in which case those series will not be added.

 

 

A series can then be activated or deactivated, by setting its STATUS_FLAG = "A" or "R", to start or stop (respectively) obtaining data for it. A series' SERIES_DESC may be changed, but not the SERIES_NAME or SERIES_UNIT; they uniquely identify the series.