Comments on: B-44 Forms

By: Armand MacMurray

Armand MacMurray — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 01:50:13 +0000

Re: #11,12
Just this evening, I’ve been getting server not responding messages; we’ll see if it’s just some maintenance work, or if they think I’m a bot.

By: Armand MacMurray

Armand MacMurray — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 19:48:01 +0000

Re:#11
It worked fine for me both a few hours ago and again now.

By: Steve McIntyre

Steve McIntyre — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 15:02:38 +0000

#9. The access described in #9 has stopped working (temporarily?)

By: Ron Cram

Ron Cram — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 10:05:57 +0000

Steve,
I just followed your directions and found the same line “Insufficient Privileges To View Directions.” That is surprising to me since they provide GPS coordinates and a street address that anyone can mapquest. Do you think it is significant?

Okay, I just looked at a few other sites in Kansas and Montana and they have the same line so this is definitely a policy of NCDC, not an anomaly. Also, not all of these sites have a street address. Perhaps they only want uninvited visitors who also happen to own a GPS unit?

By: Steve McIntyre

Steve McIntyre — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 03:47:43 +0000

You can get to the Driving Directions line of the B-44 form at MI3, but then:

Driving Directions: “Insufficient Privileges To View Directions.”

Here’s the routing:
Access http://mi3.ncdc.noaa.gov/mi3qry/login.cfm
Click: Guest Login
Name contains “marysville” Click
Choose: Marysville producing popup.
Click Location tab: http://mi3.ncdc.noaa.gov/mi3qry/locationGrid.cfm?fid=2982&stnId=2982
This yields popup with history of station locations:
39.145830 (39°08’44″N) -121.585280 (121°35’07″W)
Description: FIRE STATION WITHIN & 0.5 MI NNE OF PO AT MARYSVILLE, CA
Location Description: 828-8TH STREET WITHIN AND 0.3 MI WSW OFPO AT ORLAND, CA
Click hyperlink “Begin Data 1998-04-01″ yielding new popup with more details. including information on obstructions.
Click hyperlink “primary location” for new popup that contains information on location accuracy (GPS here) and Driving Directions: “Insufficient Privileges To View Directions.”

By: Steve McIntyre

Steve McIntyre — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 02:51:57 +0000

The cooperative observers are volunteers who donate their time in the interests of the public good with a reasonable expectation that their personal information will remain private.

If the observations are being done by a municipal institution such as a fire station or power station or experimental farm, why should this apply?

By: Pat Frank

Pat Frank — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 02:19:18 +0000

#5 — Agreed, Armand. VW’s explanation is fine and an honest accounting of the situation. The point for me, though, is that Vose ea. should have been so reassuring about the availability of B-44 forms for inspection, when in fact getting to the forms ranges between difficult and very difficult.

By: Warwick Hughes

Warwick Hughes — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 02:07:20 +0000

I see this as a classic case of what I warn about re the Jones et al papers, “do not accept what they say, checkout what they do”.

By: Armand MacMurray

Armand MacMurray — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 00:39:07 +0000

Re: #3
Pat, Vernon’s statement above suggests a reasonable explanation of the situation. Station history information (on paper) from 2001 and earlier seems to have been keyed-in to the database as part of the “SHIPS conversion” relatively recently (the initial conversion dates I’ve seen have been in Jan 2004). It seems that an effort has been made to convert “descriptive” reasons into codes as part of this effort; presumably some erroneous omissions will have been made as well.
I suspect that the intent of the conversion *was* to capture all the information from B44 forms into the database, and thus that Karl et al believe in good faith that “This will be the same information accessible to you for free via MMS.” Of course, one would have hoped for spot-auditing before such a statement was made, but such an omission seems to be par for the course.

By: John Baltutis

John Baltutis — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 22:48:02 +0000

After January 2001, Cooperative station history information was submitted to the NCDC electronically rather than via paper form. For station history submitted after January 2001, MMS is the only delivery option.

The NWS B44 forms are not accessible online by the general public because they contain personally identifiable information such as observer name, address, phone number and gender. The cooperative observers are volunteers who donate their time in the interests of the public good with a reasonable expectation that their personal information will remain private.

Since the data is submitted electronically, it should be simple matter to create an online source file, sans the personally identifiable information such as observer name, address, phone number and gender.

Just another barrier erected to keep the data hidden from public view.