Analysis Times
                              -------- -----


Reanalysis products come in 3 different types, analyses, 6-hour forecasts and 
6-hour average/accumulations.  The convention used with Reanalysis products is 
that the products are labeled with the 'starting' time.  For analyses such as 
the 500 mb temperature, the 'starting' time corresponds to the analysis time.  
However, the 'starting' time for a 6-hour forecast is 6 hours before the 
validation time.   The 'starting' time for the 6-hour average/accumulations is 
at the start of the averaging period.  For example, the monthly mean of 00Z 
2-meter temperature (DATA\MONTHLY\OTHER\TMP.2M) is actually the monthly mean
of the 06Z temperatures.

The best method to determine whether a Reanalysis product is an analysis,
forecast or an average is to use 'wgrib' on the file (assuming the file is in 
GRIB).  (wgrib can be found in PROGRAMS\WGRIB.)  Generally free atmospheric 
variables are analyses, boundary layer quantities are 6-hour forecasts, and 
fluxes are 6-hour averages.

Because of a limitation in GRIB, the time stamps of the monthly means and
variances have been fudged.  See TEXT\DETAILS\WHITE.LIE for more information.

The cross-sections (which are in IEEE) are all monthly means of analyses
(DATA\IEEE\CROSS) or variances of the analyses from the monthly mean
(DATA\IEEE\CROSSVAR).