 What does that mean?This means that for a few of the
public announcements and many of the river and climate materials,
both uppercase and lowercase letters will be used in the body of the
message, as well as numerous special keyboard characters, instead of
all capital letters and only a few punctuation marks.
Why do most NWS products use all capital letters?
For decades, the National Weather Service was limited to using
only capital letters and a small set of punctuation marks because of
the teletype machines and wire services that were used to
disseminate and receive the text products, such as weather forecasts
and warnings.
Some computer systems that receive the messages are still
programmed to receive the NWS information in the ALL CAPS form. This
experiment will allow users and partners to update, identify and
correct any problems in their systems with the reception of messages
containing an expanded character set, with uppercase, lowercase and
special symbols).
What products will be part of this experiment?
Three public products and 11 hydrologic and climate products will
be part of the experiment. The public products are:
-
AFD -- Area Forecast
Discussion
-
PNS -- Public
Information Statement
-
RWS -- Regional Weather Summary
The 11 hydrologic and climate products are:
-
ESF -- Hydrologic
Outlook
-
FFA -- Flood Watch
for Forecast Points
-
FLW -- Flood Warning
for Forecast Points
-
FLS -- Follow-up to
Flood Warning for FP
-
FLS -- Flood Advisory
for Forecast Points
-
RVS -- Hydrologic
Statement
-
RVA -- Hydrologic
Summary
-
RVD -- River and Lake
Forecast Product
-
HYx --
Hydrometeorological Data Summary
-
RTP -- Regional Temp
and Precipitation
-
AGO -- Agricultural Observations
[to top of second column] |
 What set of characters will be used in these products?
The following set of characters will
be used in the products listed above:
"space" ! " # $ % &
' ( ) * + , -- . /
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 : ; < = > ?
@ A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O
P Q R S T U V W X Y Z [ ] ^ _
` a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o
p q r s t u v w x y z { | } ~
Where can I get more information?
For more information, including a list of participating NWS
offices and a link to provide comments, go to:
http://www.nws.noaa.gov/om/notification/
pns13expanded_atan_mixedcase.htm.
For additional information about the hydrologic and climate
products in this experiment, go to:
http://www.nws.noaa.gov/os/notification/
pns13atan1096riverpro.htm.
[Text from
news release posted by
National Weather Service, Lincoln office]
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