Instructions and Format

   The data offered in the SCRAM surface meteorological data files are
comprised of those parameters required by the RAMMET meteorological
preprocessor program and subsequently input to the appropriate short term air
quality dispersion models offered on the SCRAM website.  After a surface
meteorological data file has been downloaded, it is first necessary
to dearchive ("unzip") it using the PKUNZIP program. The resulting file
is in a Special Format that is used by the SCRAM website to conserve storage
space.  The parameters and the format of the records in this file are as
follows:

       Field        Parameter                    
      Position        Name                     Units

        1-5       National Weather Service
                  Station Number
        6-7       Year
        8-9       Month
       10-11      Day
       12-13      Hour
       14-16      Ceiling Height           Hundreds of Feet
       17-18      Wind Direction           Tens of Degrees
       19-21      Wind Speed               Knots
       22-24      Dry Bulb Temperature     Degrees Fahrenheit
       25-26      Total Cloud Cover        Tens of Percent
       27-28      Opaque Cloud Cover       Tens of Percent

   This format is unique to the SCRAM website and will have to be modified
by the user in order to be used in any of the standard modeling related
meteorological processing programs such as RAMMET and STAR.

   In this section SCRAM offers a program, MET144, that will allow the
user to perform two very important functions related to
these data in the special format.  The first of these functions is an edit
procedure that will identify all missing data parameters for the entire
file and the second function will restructure the data file into the CD144
National Weather Service format required by RAMMET, STAR and WINDROSE.  More
details on the use of MET144 can be found in the program's read-me file,
METRME.TXT.

   The SCRAM surface meteorological data files are comprised of data acquired
from the National Climatic Data Center.  Short term regulatory air quality
models require that the meteorologial input data sets contain no missing
values.  Therefore, missing data values have been filled as prescribed in
"Procedures for Substituting Values for Missing NWS Meteorological Data for
Use in Regulatory Air Quality Models", which is available in the
Meteorological Data Guidance, Preprocessors and Related Programs Section
of the SCRAM website .

   A text file is included with each data file which identifies all changes
made to the data.  This text file is the output from the DOS utility "FC.EXE",
as it compares and documents differences between the data file as it is on the
SCRAM website and the original data file.