E-mail sent to my local NWS office

[weatherlover427]

AREA FORECAST DISCUSSION
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE SAN DIEGO
320 AM PDT THU APR 8 2004

.SYNOPSIS...THE MARINE LAYER AND ONSHORE FLOW WILL CONTINUE LOW
CLOUDS AND PATCHY FOG WEST OF THE MOUNTAINS IN THE NIGHTS AND
MORNINGS. BREEZY IN THE MOUNTAINS AND DESERTS AT TIMES.
OTHERWISE...FAIR IN DRY NORTHWEST FLOW ALOFT. WARMER EARLY NEXT WEEK
UNDER HIGH PRESSURE.

&&

.DISCUSSION...FOR EXTREME SOUTHWESTERN CALIFORNIA INCLUDING ORANGE...
SAN DIEGO...WESTERN RIVERSIDE AND SOUTHWESTERN SAN BERNARDINO
COUNTIES.

DRY NW FLOW ALF WL CONTINUE INTO THE WEEKEND WITH GFS/MESOETA
SHOWING A WK CSTL EDDY EACH NIGHT THRU FRIDAY NIGHT. MARINE LYR WL
REMAIN AROUND 2500 TO 3000 FT INTO THE WEEKEND...THEN MAY DECR IN
DEPTH A LTL SUNDAY INTO MONDAY AS WEAK HIGH PRESSURE OVR THE ERN
PACIFIC PROGRESSES INLAND AND ACROSS SRN CA. THIS SHORTWAVE RDGG WL
ALSO BRING SOME INLAND WARMING SUNDAY AND MONDAY. A TROUGH OF LOW
PRESSURE WL FOLLOW...POSSIBLY PROGRESSING INLAND ALG THE WEST COAST
SOME TIME AROUND THE MIDDLE OF NEXT WEEK...THOUGH GFS/ECMWF DIFFER
IN DETAILS. FOR NOW...MOSTLY LIKELY IMPACT WOULD BE TO BRING SOME
COOLING AND AN INCR IN MARINE LYR DEPTH. IN THE NR TERM...LOW CLOUDS
OVR THE SAN DIEGO COUNTY COAST AND VLYS ARE FINALLY BEGINNING TO
SPREAD NORTHWARD IN THE WEAK EDDY CIRCULATION. LOW CLOUDS SHOULD
SPREAD INTO OR DEVELOP ACROSS ORANGE COUNTY DURG THE NEXT FEW HOURS
AND PORTIONS OF THE INLAND EMPIRE AROUND SUNRISE.

&&

.SGX WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES...NONE.

&&

$$

X6

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This AFD is very hard to understand due to the excessive amount of abbreviations used in this AFD. XXX666 has been using excessive abbreviations for as long as I can recall him/her writing AFD's and his/her AFD's have always been the hardest to read and make sense out of simply due to the fact that they use so many abbreviations. I would like to make a request that Mr./Mrs. XXX666 not use so many abbreviations in his/her AFD's so that they will be easier to read. Otherwise they should not not be placed in a place where the public can easily find them, which will confuse them even more. Thank you for your time.

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Was I too mean in this e-mail? What should I have changed (if anything)?

[Anonymous]

Seems like a fairly standard AFD to me, actually. LWX usually makes use even more abbreviations than that. Which parts were hard to read for you?

[weatherlover427]

It's not too hard actually since I'm so used to it by now. I know that ALF means aloft, WL means will, CSTL means coastal, so on and so forth. It's just that he's the only forecaster in that office who does this; so it does take a small amount of time longer to read his AFD's than the others.

[Winnipesaukee]

Just read it at wunderground.com where they replace 90% of the abbreviations for you.

[Stormsfury]

It's not too hard actually since I'm so used to it by now. I know that ALF means aloft, WL means will, CSTL means coastal, so on and so forth. It's just that he's the only forecaster in that office who does this; so it does take a small amount of time longer to read his AFD's than the others.

Josh, the AFD's aren't designed for the general public to read and that's part of the reason for so many abbreviations ... also, the meteorologist in charge of the forecasts, and the discussions are on deadlines and to meet those deadlines, they have to put out a product as timely and as fast as they can while maintaining accuracy to the forecasts ...

I have a link on my website (Weather Information and Tutorials section) with a link to many of the contractions used in the forecast discussions by HPC and other NWS offices...

http://www.hpc.ncep.noaa.gov/html/contract.html

[weatherlover427]

The forecaster in question here (XXX666) usually puts his products out late (sometimes over an hour late). I've noticed this happening when he writes the products. Other forecasters do not have this problem. A forecaster with the last name of Bruno out of the NWS Oxnard office does the same hing, and he also uses many abbreviations/contractions.

[Aslkahuna]

they are Contractions and not abbreviations-there's a difference. Secondly, I would rather have someone put out an AFD late if it meant that they were looking at the situation closely. BTW beware, I have just found my list of NWS Contractions and I might just start using them in my weather posts

Steve

[weatherlover427]

I hope that devil emoticon was a joke.

I'm just playing btw.

[senorpepr]

I understand completely what you're saying Josh, but like Stormsfury mentioned, these products are technically aimed for meteorologists. I agree that public discussions should not have as many contractions -- mainly limited to directions and whatnot. As a part of my job I write discussions similar, if not more technical than these. Trust me... contractions save time and space. Not only time typing it, but downloading time. Essentially it's not much of an issue in today's time of high-speed internet, but some situations a simple download will take a few minutes... and every second saved is a second used better. In some of the discussions I have to write, they end up being eight pages... with contractions. Imagine if I didn't use contractions. Now imagine downloading that discussion at a baud rate of 2400bps. (Yes, some people still use these "stone-age" modems... not me ) Additionally, a lot of the forecasters who wholeheartedly use contractions are typically "old-school," where the time-saving issue was bigger.

Also, like Steve mentioned, I could start using contractions here. Actually, you wouldn't believe how many times I've came close to hitting submit, then I look up and notice the entire post is contracted.

[Josephine96]

They are abbreviations.. Not contractions lol

[Aslkahuna]

of us who have been around for a long time and who were or are still now in the game know them as Contractions as that's what they are called by the Powers That Be. Back in the old days of TTY traffic, there used to be an official manual of Contractions put out by the Government for use in all official message traffic and not just Weather traffic. Thus some of the contractions used in weather messages will not show up on the NWS exclusive list since they are generic to all messages. Actually, I would (wud) imagine that the Contractions Manual still exists online somewhere.

Steve

[senorpepr]

They are abbreviations.. Not contractions lol

Actually, they are contractions. Like Steve mentioned, officially there are, and have always been, contractions.

of us who have been around for a long time and who were or are still now in the game know them as Contractions as that's what they are called by the Powers That Be. Back in the old days of TTY traffic, there used to be an official manual of Contractions put out by the Government for use in all official message traffic and not just Weather traffic. Thus some of the contractions used in weather messages will not show up on the NWS exclusive list since they are generic to all messages. Actually, I would (wud) imagine that the Contractions Manual still exists online somewhere.

Actually, here's a link to the contractions listing. A majority of NWS offices, to include SPC and AWC, along with most, if not all, USAF/Army Wx Stations have this manual at hand.

http://www.gofir.com/general/contractions/

[Guest]

Most of teh abbrieviations/contractions or what ever you want to call then are only missing vowels.
ALF WL = aloft will Just add the vowels!

[senorpepr]

lol... exactly Bob. A majority of the contracts are simply missing vowels. ...and when it comes down to it, it's up to the forecaster. Normally I will spell out aloft and will. I even work with some who spell wind as 'wnd'. When I type up bulletins, they're normally directions such as NWD for northward, or SWLY for southwesterly, etc. Also things like ASSOCD for associated. That kind of stuff... to brake up the larger words.

[weatherlover427]

OK, I can understand words like "associated" being abbrv8d. But still, wl for will? That's just laziness if you ask me ... Takes maybe half a second to add the "IL" in there.

[ColdFront77]

lol... exactly Bob. A majority of the contracts are simply missing vowels. ...and when it comes down to it, it's up to the forecaster. Normally I will spell out aloft and will. I even work with some who spell wind as 'wnd'. When I type up bulletins, they're normally directions such as NWD for northward, or SWLY for southwesterly, etc. Also things like ASSOCD for associated. That kind of stuff... to brake up the larger words.

As you can probably tell I am not one for abbreviating most words, the majority of the time. It doesn't take that long to type out medium to long sized words.
So why shorten them?

OK, I can understand words like "associated" being abbrv8d. But still, wl for will? That's just laziness if you ask me ... Takes maybe half a second to add the "IL" in there.

I agree, actually it doesn't take more than a quarter of a second, if that to type "wind" instead of "wnd."

[Aslkahuna]

date back to the days of Landline Com (which BTW still exists in some Countries ) when one was charged for each character sent. Consequently, to save coins the vowels were taken out of the words to contract them-hence the term Contractions. Abbreviations include vowels while all but a few contractions do not. We hv bn hvg Tstm Actvty tdy. Actually, Contractions are also usually capitalized since most TTY machines did not have lower case characters.

Steve

[senorpepr]

date back to the days of Landline Com (which BTW still exists in some Countries ) when one was charged for each character sent. Consequently, to save coins the vowels were taken out of the words to contract them-hence the term Contractions. Abbreviations include vowels while all but a few contractions do not. We hv bn hvg Tstm Actvty tdy. Actually, Contractions are also usually capitalized since most TTY machines did not have lower case characters.

Steve

Yes... I complete forgot all about that. I now when I was stationed in Germany just a little over a year ago we would send out certain aircraft forecasts. We would have to contract as much as possible to save the government money. I wanted to say it was a penny a character. Do the math: ISOLD TSTM ACTVTY ASSOCD WITH FROPA versus ISOLATED THUNDERSTORM ACTIVITY ASSOCIATED WITH FRONTAL PASSAGE. If the penny per characater is correct, we're talking $0.35 versus $0.62. After enough messages, the cost adds up!

[ColdFront77]

I was thinking about there not being only vowels missing from Area Forecast Discussions.

FROPA = FROntal PAssage... the "ntal" in "frontal" and the "ssage" in "passage" are omitted, opposed to just vowels. This is obviously an abbreviation, not a contraction; thus both abbreviation and contractions are indeed used.

[senorpepr]

True Tom, that is an abbreviation. As Steve mentioned before, the higher powers called them, as a whole, contractions and that is what they are officially documented as in the FAA regulations.