Friday, April 28, 2017

International List of Weather Services

Afghanistan Afghan Meteorological Authority
Albania The Hydrometeorological Institute
Algeria Office National de la Météorologie
Angola Instituto Nacional de Hidrometeorología e Geofísica
Antigua and Barbuda Meteorological Services
Argentina Servicio Meteorológico Nacional
Armenia Armenian State Hydrometeorological and Monitoring Service
Australia Bureau of Meteorology
Austria Central Institute for Meteorology and Geodynamics
Azerbaijan National Hydrometeorological Department
Bahamas  Department of Meteorology
Bahrain Bahrain Meteorological Service
Bangladesh Bangladesh Meteorological Department
Barbados Meteorological Services
Belarus Department of Hydrometeorology
Belgium Institut Royal Météorologique
Belize National Meteorological Service
Benin Service Météorologique National
Bhutan Council for Renewable Natural Resources Research
Bolivia (Plurinational State of) Servicio Nacional de Meteorología e Hidrología
Bosnia and Herzegovina Meteorological Institute
Botswana Botswana Meteorological Services
Brazil Instituto Nacional de Meteorologia
Brunei Darussalam The Brunei Meteorological Service
Bulgaria National Institute of Meteorology and Hydrology
Burkina Faso Direction de la Météorologie
Burundi Institut Géographique du Burundi
Cambodia Department of Meteorology
Cameroon Direction de la Météorologie Nationale
Canada Meteorological Service of Canada
Cabo Verde Instituto Nacional de Meteorologia e Geophísica
Central African Republic Direction Générale de l'Aviation Civile et de la Météorologie
Chad Direction des Ressources en Eau et de la Météorologie
Chile Dirección Meteorológica de Chile
China China Meteorological Administration
Colombia Instituto de Hidrología, Meteorología y Estudios Ambientales
Comoros Direction de la Météorologie Nationale
Congo Direction de la Météorologie Nationale
Cook Islands Cook Islands Meteorological Service
Costa Rica Instituto Meteorológico Nacional
Côte d'Ivoire Direction de la Météorologie Nationale
Croatia Meteorological and Hydrological Service
Cuba Instituto de Meteorología
Cyprus Meteorological Service
Czech Republic Czech Hydrometeorological Institute
Democratic People's Republic of Korea State Hydrometeorological Administration
Democratic Republic of the Congo Agence Nationale de Météorologie et de Télédétection par Satellite
Denmark Danish Meteorological Institute
Djibouti Service de la Météorologie
Dominica Dominica Meteorological Services
Dominican Republic Oficina Nacional de Meteorologiá
Gabon Direction de la Météorologie Nationale
The Gambia Department of Water Resources
Georgia Department of Hydrometeorology
Germany Deutscher Wetterdienst
Ghana Ghana Meteorological Services Department
Greece Hellenic National Meteorological Service
Guatemala Instituto Nacional de Sismología, Vulcanología, Meteorologiá e Hidrología
Guinea Direction Nationale de la Météorologie
Guinea-Bissau Météorologie de Guinée Bissau
Guyana Hydrometeorological Service
Iceland Icelandic Meteorological Office
India India Meteorological Department
Indonesia Meteorological and Geophysical Agency
Iran, Islamic Republic of Islamic Republic of Iran Meteorological Organization
Iraq Iraqi Meteorological Organization
Ireland The Irish Meteorological Service
Israel Israel Meteorological Service
Italy Servizio Meteorologico
Kazakhstan Kazhydromet
Kenya Kenya Meteorological Department
Kiribati Kiribati Meteorological Service
Kuwait Department of Meteorology
Kyrgyzstan Main Hydrometeorological Administration
Lao People's Democratic Republic Department of Meteorology and Hydrology
Latvia Latvian Environment, Geology and Meteorology Agency
Lebanon Service Météorologique
Lesotho Lesotho Meteorological Services
Liberia Ministry of Transport
Libya Libyan National Meteorological Centre
Lithuania Lithuanian Hydrometeorological Service
Luxembourg Administration de l'Aéroport de Luxembourg
Saint Lucia Meteorological Services
Samoa Samoa Meteorology Division
Sao Tome and Principe Institut National de Météorologie
Saudi Arabia Presidency of Meteorology and Environment
Senegal Direction de la Météorologie Nationale
Serbia Republic Hydrometeorological Service of Serbia
Seychelles National Meteorological Services
Sierra Leone Meteorological Department
Singapore Meteorological Services Division
Slovakia Slovak Hydrometeorological Institute
Slovenia Meteorological Office
Solomon Islands Solomon Islands Meteorological Service
Somalia Permanent Mission of Somalia
South Africa South African Weather Service
South Sudan South Sudan Weather Service
Spain Agencia Estatal de Meteorología
Sri Lanka Department of Meteorology
Sudan Sudan Meteorological Authority
Suriname Meteorological Service
Swaziland Swaziland Meteorological Service
Sweden Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute
Switzerland MeteoSwiss
Syrian Arab Republic Ministry of Defence Meteorological Department
Tajikistan Main Administration of Hydrometeorology and Monitoring of the Environment
Thailand Thai Meteorological Department
Timor-Leste, Democratic Republic of Dirrecão Nacional Meteorologia e Geofisica
The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia Republic Hydrometeorological Institute
Togo Direction de la Météorologie Nationale
Tonga Tonga Meteorological Service
Trinidad and Tobago Meteorological Service
Tunisia National Institute of Meteorology
Turkey Turkish State Meteorological Service
Turkmenistan Administration of Hydrometeorology
Tuvalu Tuvalu Met Service
Uganda Department of Meteorology
Ukraine Ukrainian Hydrometeorological Center
United Arab Emirates National Center for Meteorology and Seismology
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland Met Office
United Republic of Tanzania Tanzania Meteorological Agency
United States of America National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
Uruguay Dirección Nacional de Meteorología
Uzbekistan Uzhydromet

Territories

British Caribbean Territories Caribbean Meteorological Organization
French Polynesia Météo-France Polynesie Francaise
Hong Kong, China Hong Kong Observatory
Macao, China Meteorological and Geophysical Bureau
Curaçao and Sint Maarten Meteorological Service
New Caledonia Météo-France Nouvelle Calédonie

Wednesday, April 5, 2017

Converting a Google Earth Path to a GPX Route

There are occasions in navigation when we might want to make a route starting with Google Earth (GE).  This can occur when there is poor charting of an area, but good satellite images, or in more common cases of just wanting to take advantage of the slick display GE offers to layout a route, and then do the fine tuning relative to charted aids on an actual chart.

When doing the latter, one thing we learned to be aware of is GE images do not specify tide height!  We have made a few practice routes in and around small islands, only to learn after the routes were imported to a navigation program and viewed on real charts, that in fact the tide was high when the image was taken, so we were actually laying out a route over a foreshore.  Looked like perfectly good water in the satellite image.

The procedure described here is making and saving a path using GE, and then applying a simple conversion to put this into standard GPS Exchange format (GPX), which is a file type that all navigation programs can read and interpret.

We have discussed this in earlier posts, listed below, but our new system is better documented and now employs a conversion service of our own that is as direct as possible.  The process is described in this video:


The converter is located at this page

Starpath KML to GPX converter (www.starpath.com/gpx), 

which repeats the instructions.

________________

Earlier related notes include:

Route Planning and Sharing with GPX Files

How to make current stations into waypoints in a batch process

The GPX standard is described here: GPX 1.1 Schema Documentation

An online service that does several types of conversions is GPS Visualizer

Here are what these files look like.  They are xml format. They are readable in a text viewer.

A KML file:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<kml xmlns="http://www.opengis.net/kml/2.2" xmlns:gx="http://www.google.com/kml/ext/2.2" xmlns:kml="http://www.opengis.net/kml/2.2" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom">
<Document>
<name>Baha-test-route.kml</name>
<StyleMap id="inline">
<Pair>
<key>normal</key>
<styleUrl>#inline0</styleUrl>
</Pair>
<Pair>
<key>highlight</key>
<styleUrl>#inline1</styleUrl>
</Pair>
</StyleMap>
<Style id="inline0">
<LineStyle>
<color>ff0000ff</color>
<width>2</width>
</LineStyle>
<PolyStyle>
<fill>0</fill>
</PolyStyle>
</Style>
<Style id="inline1">
<LineStyle>
<color>ff0000ff</color>
<width>2</width>
</LineStyle>
<PolyStyle>
<fill>0</fill>
</PolyStyle>
</Style>
<Placemark>
<name>Baha-test-route</name>
<styleUrl>#inline</styleUrl>
<LineString>
<tessellate>1</tessellate>
<coordinates>
-109.9149585549397,24.54030130162237,0 -109.7004369370675,24.16846017059697,0 -109.7511069786428,24.1101387791539,0 -109.8286141711317,24.09290849128375,0 -109.9329035588094,24.10824725446978,0 -110.0257611588921,24.29775334743895,0 -110.2115066128303,24.58804334869875,0 -110.3484830291369,24.66860558615499,0 -110.4831806473397,24.63053918262128,0 -110.4894445378171,24.48650911115754,0 -110.4181686154688,24.36026101756055,0 -110.3474312753582,24.36824754053653,0 -110.2411283328199,24.41132537504683,0
</coordinates>
</LineString>
</Placemark>
</Document>
</kml>


and a GPX file after conversion to GPX:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<gpx xmlns="http://www.topografix.com/GPX/1/1" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.topografix.com/GPX/1/1 http://www.topografix.com/GPX/1/1/gpx.xsd" version="1.1" creator="Starpath School of Navigation - http://www.starpath.com">
<rte>
<name>Baha-test-route</name>
<rtept lat="24.54030130162237" lon="-109.9149585549397">
<name>001</name>
</rtept>
        <rtept lat="24.16846017059697" lon="-109.7004369370675">
<name>002</name>
</rtept>
        <rtept lat="24.1101387791539" lon="-109.7511069786428">
<name>003</name>
</rtept>
        <rtept lat="24.09290849128375" lon="-109.8286141711317">
<name>004</name>
</rtept>
        <rtept lat="24.10824725446978" lon="-109.9329035588094">
<name>005</name>
</rtept>
        <rtept lat="24.29775334743895" lon="-110.0257611588921">
<name>006</name>
</rtept>
        <rtept lat="24.58804334869875" lon="-110.2115066128303">
<name>007</name>
</rtept>
        <rtept lat="24.66860558615499" lon="-110.3484830291369">
<name>008</name>
</rtept>
        <rtept lat="24.63053918262128" lon="-110.4831806473397">
<name>009</name>
</rtept>
        <rtept lat="24.48650911115754" lon="-110.4894445378171">
<name>010</name>
</rtept>
        <rtept lat="24.36026101756055" lon="-110.4181686154688">
<name>011</name>
</rtept>
        <rtept lat="24.36824754053653" lon="-110.3474312753582">
<name>012</name>
</rtept>
        <rtept lat="24.41132537504683" lon="-110.2411283328199">
<name>013</name>
</rtept>
        </rte>
</gpx>