Testing the operational setup

Now that we have added our automated file management scripts we should be able to turn on NWCSAF-GEO and let it automatically process the data as it arrives. This is analogous to the way in which NWCSAF-GEO runs when using real near-real-time data.

Before we start lets make sure that we have a clean setup by emptying the Sat_data, NWP_data directories in the import directory as well as the tmp directory.

rm -rf $SAFNWC/import/Sat_data/*

rm -rf $SAFNWC/import/NWP_data/*

rm -rf $SAFNWC/tmp/*

Now lets run the GFS_move.sh script in the background to start the automated process of moving GFS NWP data into the NWP_data directory.

cd $SAFNWC/scripts

./GFS_move.sh &

Now we can start up NWCSAF-GEO as we have done before.

To start the software run the following command

SAFNWCTM

you should now see the following status message

========================================================

         Satellite Application Facility

                  on support to

     Nowcasting and Very Short-Range Forecasting

                    NWC/GEO v2018

                   15 December 2018

     Copyright 2018, EUMETSAT, All Rights Reserved    

--------------------------------------------------------

   Visit our web site for information and support at  

             http://nwc-saf.eumetsat.int              

========================================================

Step 1: Remapping NWP data for the NWC/GEO

         This step can take several minutes ...

         Check the progress in /home/swift/safnwc/logs/safnwctm_2019-07-12T14:06:49Z.log

         AllMappingNWP safnwc.cfs ...

Step 2: Initiating the NWC/GEO Task-Manager Cycle

nohup: appending output to ‘nohup.out’

-----------------------------------------------------------

Task Manager for the NWC/GEO has been started successfully

-----------------------------------------------------------

Now that the mapping stage is complete we can run the MSG_move.sh script to start the transfer of compressed satellite data into compressed_Sat_data directory. As this arrives it will be automatically decompressed by our decompress.sh script being run as a cron job and moved into the Sat_data directory so that it is visible to the NWCSAF-GEO software.

./MSG_move.sh &

If you use the same commands as shown before you will be able to check on the progress of the PGEs as they are generated.

tm log printtty `tty`

If everything has gone to plan you will start to see details of how the PGEs are running. If they end with an exit code of 0 then everything is running well. If this is not the case then we can start to diagnose problems by looking at the log files that are generated.

Do this by navigating to the $SAFNWC/logs directory

You can then list in order of age using the command below

ls -ltr *

Then use tail -f on the last file in the list to see the latest entries to the log file. This information can be very useful in identifying the problem that is preventing a smooth running of the NWCSAF-GEO software. You can exit tail by using ctrl + c.

When you receive a message saying that All PGEs for Slot 2018-08-02T23:45:00Z have concluded then all the "operational" test data has been processed and you can exit the NWCSAF task manager.

tm quit 

we will now look at visualisation of the output using python code supplied by NWCSAF.