Background

The CWMS database includes four types of time series:

  • Regular Time Series (RTS)
    • Stored values recur at fixed intervals with respect to UTC time
    • Recurrence interval is indicated in the interval portion of the time series identifier (e.g., 6Hours, 1Day)
    • The interval plus any specified offset into the interval determines expected times for values
    • Only incoming values occurring at an expected time may be stored
  • Irregular Time Series (ITS)
    • Stored values have no fixed recurrence interval
    • The interval portion of the time series identifier is 0
    • All incoming values are stored
  • Pseudo-Regular Time Series (PRTS)
    • Stored values have no fixed recurrence interval
    • The interval portion of the time series identifier is a ~ followed by a regular time series interval (e.g., ~6Hours, ~1Day) and indicates a "roughly expected" recurrence interval, but imposes no requirements
    • All incoming values are stored
  • Local Regular Time Series (LRTS)
    • Stored values recur at fixed clock intervals with respect to the local time zone of the time series' location
      • These intervals will also be regular with respect to UTC except for one interval each Spring and one each Autum when Summer Time (Daylight Savings Time) begins and ends
    • Recurrence interval has previously been indicated identical to PRTS (e.g., ~6Hours, ~1Day)
      • LRTS have different metadata than PRTS, but the naming conventions have been identical, leading to confusion
    • Like RTS, the interval plus any specified offset into the interval determines expected times for values
    • Like RTS, only incoming values occurring at an expected time may be stored

Current Status

As of HEC-RTS v3.6, the CWMS database allows a new naming convention for LRTS in order to visually differentiate them from PRTS. The functionality of LRTS remains the same, but the interval portion is changed to a standard RTS interval with the word Local appended (e.g., 6HoursLocal, 1DayLocal)

As installed, HEC-RTS v3.6 will use the same naming convention for LRTS as previous versions. However a future version will require the new LRTS convention, so converting while using HEC-RTS 3.6 is strongly encouraged

User Actions Necessary to Convert to New LRTS Convention

In order to use the new LRTS identifiers, the following actions are required:

  1. Change the line vmparam -Dcwms.interval.localregular.new.enabled=false from false to true in HEC-RTS.config and CWMS-Vue.config
  2. Change all LRTS identifiers to the new format in all local text files used with HEC-RTS or CWMSVue that contain LRTS identifiers (e.g., TimeSeries.icons, *.dataStatus, extract/post *.xml, scripts). Make backups of these files before editing in case you need to roll back to a working state.

    If you use a text editor that has regular expression support use:
    1. ~(\d+(Hour|Day|Week|Month|Year)s?) to find the intervals the old LRTS format
    2. $1Local to convert the intervals to the new LRTS format

Warning - do not use "replace all" using these expressions unless you are sure the file contains only LRTS identifiers and no PRTS identifiers, as the search expression will find both

If you don't have access to a text editor with regular expression support you will need to search on ~ and perform the the changes manually