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ds824.1 BINARY DATA FILESGo to Dataset: 

 

Dataset History

The binary files for this dataset are Fortran unformatted sequential I/O files. For a complete description of the data, see this document. Each binary record contains information for a tropical cyclone at a single 6-hourly interval and can be read as follows:

      CHARACTER STORMNAME*12
      OPEN(UNIT=11,FILE=FILENAME,ACCESS='SEQUENTIAL',FORM='UNFORMATTED')
10    READ(11,ERR=999) ISNBR,INUM,IYEAR,IMONTH,IDAY,IHOUR,STORMNAME,ITYPE,
     +XLAT,XLON,IWIND,IPRES
        .
        .
        .
      GOTO 10
999   END

ISNBR is the sequential cyclone number relative to the whole file
INUM is the sequential cyclone number relative to the season in which it formed
IYEAR, IMONTH, IDAY, and IHOUR are the date and time of the cyclone information
STORMNAME is the name of the cyclone
ITYPE is the cyclone type, as follows:

 1 = Subtropical System
 2 = Tropical System
12 = Tropical System whose track has been subjectively extended inland
     because it was artificially terminated in the original dataset
 3 = Extratropical System
 4 = Extratropical Gale
-1 = Remnant Low
-2 = Open Wave


XLAT^* and XLON^* are the latitude and longitude of the cyclone's position
IWIND is the estimated sustained wind speed in knots of the cyclone (missing = 999)
IPRES is the estimated minimum central pressure in millibars of the cyclone (missing = 99999)

The files can also be read with C. Each record is 64 bytes in length, as follows:

Bytes	Description
1 - 4	Fortran record length (=56)
5 - 8	ISNBR (see above)
9 - 12	INUM (see above)
13 - 16	IYEAR (see above)
17 - 20	IMONTH (see above)
21 - 24	IDAY (see above)
25 - 28	IHOUR (see above)
29 - 40	STORMNAME (see above)
41 - 44	ITYPE (see above)
45 - 48	XLAT* (see above)
49 - 52	XLON* (see above)
53 - 56	IWIND (see above)
57 - 60	IPRES (see above)
61 - 64	Fortran record length (=56)

^*Real values are in IEEE floating point representation

Updated 06 June 2006