RFC 251

Weather Data 🌦️✨

Okay bestie, RFC 251 is giving forecast energy 🌸 It's a Request for Comment No. 251 (NIC No. 7692) from the Network Working Group, written by D. Stern of CCA on 13 October 1971 🎀 The Category field is blank in the header, so I'm not guessing one 🙈 It updates nothing and obsoletes nothing, so it's a fresh start, no drama 💅

The USAF Environmental Technical Applications Center (ETAC) is bringing weather data to the ARPA Network 🌈 The goal is ten years of high quality surface and upper air weather observations, plus hemispheric grid point analyses. Those observations come from roughly 5000 surface and 1200 upper air stations spread all over the world 🌍 That's a lot of data, periodt 😭

The data will live on the datacomputer, a specialized node of the ARPA Network built to manage shared data bases and designed to handle big ones 🦋 It's currently being built by Computer Corporation of America (CCA), and it'll offer services* for using these data bases, weather data included ✨

A working group has been formed to design the data base, coordinate its build with the datacomputer, plan testing, figure out projects that use it, and sort out a bunch of technical issues tied to its size and complexity 🧚 Lowkey a whole mission.

Prospective users, working members, or interested parties should reach out to:

Dale H. Stern
Computer Corporation of America
575 Technology Square
Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139
617-491-3670

* See RFC 219 🫶

       [ This RFC was put into machine readable form for entry ]
       [ into the online RFC archives by BBN Corp. under the   ]
       [ direction of Alex McKenzie.                   12/96   ]