How to use this program.
Use copy and paste. This program is designed to quickly convert weather data lists from a spreadsheet to a list of CFFDRS outputs. In your spreadsheet or database, select your weather data list. The list should contain 5 fields per line, preferably separated by commas or tabs:
Date, Temperature (°C), RH (%), Windspeed (kmh), Rainfall (mm).
Copy the list to the clipboard. Paste it in the text area above. Click the submit button. Select the output by dragging the mouse from the top left to the bottom right or press Control-A. Copy the output. From this point on data processing depends on what you want to do with it. Typically you'd paste the data into a text file and import the text file into a statistics package, database, graphics program, or other application.Troubleshooting The program will accept some variation in input and delimitation but following the example data is the best way to obtain valid outputs.
Too many decimal places can cause a "NAN" (Not A Number) error to appear in the output.
Dates in other formats (e.g., dd/mm/yy) or (mm/dd/yyyy) may or may not cause problems with the output. Dates (especially the month) are required to estimate day length.
An explosion of errors and warnings on line one indicates you may have included a header line of column text in the input. Input your data only without headers.
Make sure your date are in the order: Date, Temperature, Relative humidity, Wind speed, and Precipitation.
Americans: Input must be metric.
°C = (°F-32)/1.8.
mm = 25.4 × inch.
kmh =1.62 × mph
An English system toggle switch is in the works.
Temperature in the output doesn't match the input; There are a bunch of "-1.1°C" where my temperature data used to be. All temperatures less than -1.1°C (that is, slightly lower than freezing) are converted to -1.1°C during the calculation of the indices. This is normal.
References All equations used in this application are derived from Van Wagner, C.E. and T.L. Pickett. 1985. Equations and FORTRAN program for the Canadian Forest Fire Weather Index System. Canadian Forest Service, Ottawa, ON. Forestry Technical Report 33.
taigafire.org