The abbreviation for the NCEP model is 'gfs' (global forecast system), and this will be used to denote the product.
There is no central archive for the NCEP meteo like ECMWF's MARS archive, but several individual institutes are downloading and archiving the files every day. At NOAA, ncep-gfs meteo has been obtained from a NCAR archive maintained by Phil Rasch and Dani Bundi . Some files might be missing if they have not been grabbed from the NCEP ftp site within a day.
The archive consists daily tar files, with 3 hourly files based on analysis times 00, 06, and 12. Example:
/misc/p71/co2/GFS/20040614.tar/
20040614/20040614.00.00.SF
20040614/20040614.00.00.SFLUXGrbF
20040614/20040614.00.03.SF
20040614/20040614.00.03.SFLUXGrbF
20040614/20040614.06.00.SF
20040614/20040614.06.00.SFLUXGrbF
20040614/20040614.06.03.SF
20040614/20040614.06.03.SFLUXGrbF
20040614/20040614.12.00.SF
20040614/20040614.12.00.SFLUXGrbF
20040614/20040614.12.03.SF
20040614/20040614.12.03.SFLUXGrbF
20040614/20040614.12.06.SF
20040614/20040614.12.06.SFLUXGrbF
20040614/20040614.12.09.SF
20040614/20040614.12.09.SFLUXGrbF
Binary files are named '.SF' and contain
spectral fields for orography, log surface pressure, vorticity,
divergence, virtual temperature, and humidity.
Format description is available on: http://dss.ucar.edu/pub/reanalysis//CRAY_bin.html .
From the 'description' in the CDC NetCDF files
it has been concluded that 'ncep spectral' / sqrt(2) = 'ecmwf spectral' .
Grib files are named '.SFLUXGrbF' and contain 2d surface fields.
Local tables : http://www.nco.ncep.noaa.gov/pmb/docs/on388/table2.html
Example contents:
> wgrib 20040614.00.00.SFLUXGrbF
rec param grib kpds6 kpds7 TR P1 P2 TimeU vertical temporal NAve
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1 UFLX 124 1 0 3 0 0 1 sfc 0-0hr ave 0
2 VFLX 125 1 0 3 0 0 1 sfc 0-0hr ave 0
3 SHTFL 122 1 0 3 0 0 1 sfc 0-0hr ave 0
4 LHTFL 121 1 0 3 0 0 1 sfc 0-0hr ave 0
5 TMP 11 1 0 10 0 0 1 sfc anl 0
6 SOILW 144 112 10 10 0 0 1 0-10 cm down anl 0
7 SOILW 144 112 2760 10 0 0 1 10-200 cm down anl 0
8 TMP 11 112 10 10 0 0 1 0-10 cm down anl 0
9 TMP 11 112 2760 10 0 0 1 10-200 cm down anl 0
10 WEASD 65 1 0 10 0 0 1 sfc anl 0
11 DLWRF 205 1 0 3 0 0 1 sfc 0-0hr ave 0
12 ULWRF 212 1 0 3 0 0 1 sfc 0-0hr ave 0
13 ULWRF 212 8 0 3 0 0 1 nom. top 0-0hr ave 0
14 USWRF 211 8 0 3 0 0 1 nom. top 0-0hr ave 0
15 USWRF 211 1 0 3 0 0 1 sfc 0-0hr ave 0
16 DSWRF 204 1 0 3 0 0 1 sfc 0-0hr ave 0
17 TCDC 71 234 0 3 0 0 1 high cld lay 0-0hr ave 0
18 PRES 1 233 0 3 0 0 1 high cld top 0-0hr ave 0
19 PRES 1 232 0 3 0 0 1 high cld bot 0-0hr ave 0
20 TMP 11 233 0 3 0 0 1 high cld top 0-0hr ave 0
21 TCDC 71 224 0 3 0 0 1 mid cld lay 0-0hr ave 0
22 PRES 1 223 0 3 0 0 1 mid cld top 0-0hr ave 0
23 PRES 1 222 0 3 0 0 1 mid cld bot 0-0hr ave 0
24 TMP 11 223 0 3 0 0 1 mid cld top 0-0hr ave 0
25 TCDC 71 214 0 3 0 0 1 low cld lay 0-0hr ave 0
26 PRES 1 213 0 3 0 0 1 low cld top 0-0hr ave 0
27 PRES 1 212 0 3 0 0 1 low cld bot 0-0hr ave 0
28 TMP 11 213 0 3 0 0 1 low cld top 0-0hr ave 0
29 PRATE 59 1 0 3 0 0 1 sfc 0-0hr ave 0
30 CPRAT 214 1 0 3 0 0 1 sfc 0-0hr ave 0
31 GFLUX 155 1 0 3 0 0 1 sfc 0-0hr ave 0
32 LAND 81 1 0 10 0 0 1 sfc anl 0
33 ICEC 91 1 0 10 0 0 1 sfc anl 0
34 UGRD 33 105 10 10 0 0 1 10 m above gnd anl 0
35 VGRD 34 105 10 10 0 0 1 10 m above gnd anl 0
36 TMP 11 105 2 10 0 0 1 2 m above gnd anl 0
37 SPFH 51 105 2 10 0 0 1 2 m above gnd anl 0
38 PRES 1 1 0 10 0 0 1 sfc anl 0
39 TMAX 15 105 2 2 0 0 1 2 m above gnd valid 0-0hr 0
40 TMIN 16 105 2 2 0 0 1 2 m above gnd valid 0-0hr 0
41 WATR 90 1 0 4 0 0 1 sfc 0-0hr acc 0
42 PEVPR 145 1 0 3 0 0 1 sfc 0-0hr ave 0
43 CWORK 146 200 0 3 0 0 1 atmos col 0-0hr ave 0
44 U-GWD 147 1 0 3 0 0 1 sfc 0-0hr ave 0
45 V-GWD 148 1 0 3 0 0 1 sfc 0-0hr ave 0
46 HPBL 221 1 0 10 0 0 1 sfc anl 0
47 PWAT 54 200 0 10 0 0 1 atmos col anl 0
48 ALBDO 84 1 0 3 0 0 1 sfc 0-0hr ave 0
49 TCDC 71 200 0 3 0 0 1 atmos col 0-0hr ave 0
50 TCDC 71 244 0 10 0 0 1 convect-cld layer anl 0
51 PRES 1 243 0 10 0 0 1 convect-cld top anl 0
52 PRES 1 242 0 10 0 0 1 convect-cld bot anl 0
53 TCDC 71 211 0 3 0 0 1 bndary-layer cld layer 0-0hr ave 0
In the current set, gaps are present in the accumulated fields, since for example '00.03' and '00.06' are not available but only '00.03' and '06.00' :
fc time field P1 P2 temporal
----------------------------------
04061400 SHTFL 0 0 0-0hr ave
04061400 SHTFL 0 3 0-3hr ave
04061406 SHTFL 0 0 0-0hr ave
04061406 SHTFL 0 3 0-3hr ave
04061412 SHTFL 0 0 0-0hr ave
04061412 SHTFL 0 3 0-3hr ave
04061412 SHTFL 0 6 0-6hr ave
04061412 SHTFL 6 9 6-9hr ave
tinterp.* : interp3
tinterp.surf.inst : const3
tinterp.surf.aver : aver3
tmm.sourcekey.glb6x4.* : ncep-gfs:
tmm.sourcekey.glb1x1.* : ncep-gfs:
tmm.setup.008.apply : T
tmm.setup.008.files : SF SFLUXGrbF
tmm.setup.008.sources : ncep-gfs:
tmm.setup.008.search : ${SCRATCH}/ncep.gfs