Columbia-Pacific Northwest Region

If you would like to use a form to generate your own DFCGI query, go to href=https://www.usbr.gov/pn/hydromet/dfcgi.html

General Command Syntax

To execute the dfcgi script, use your internet browser (such as Netscape or Internet Explorer) while connected to the internet and enter the address in the following form:

The host is a Unix server, so the part of the command “pn-bin/dfcgi.pl”, which refers to a directory and file name, is case sensitive and must be in lower case. The rest of the command is not case sensitive. The parameters are described below. At least one parameter is required, and others may be added as needed except when a configuration file is used. Each additional parameter must be preceded by the “&” character.

Using a Configuration File

A configuration file must first be setup by Reclamation in a specific directory on the Hydromet data server. This is the best way to get your data if you desire a report with more than one station or with specific, but not all, data parameters. There are a number of reports already configured, and custom reports to meet your needs can be setup without much trouble. If you need a special report, contact me directly.

where “filename” is the name of a previously stored configuration file. If a configuration file is used, no other parameters may be specified in the command. Some of the available configuration files are referenced in the list of “River Basin Reports” at http://www.usbr.gov/pn/hydromet/realtime.html.

Building Custom Reports

A customized retrieval includes one required parameter (site or sta), plus one or more optional parameters. The parameters may appear in any order. If a parameter is repeated, the last one specified will be used. If an unrecognized parameter is specified an error message will appear and the parameter will be ignored, and in most cases the retrieval will continue successfully. The first parameter is preceded by the question mark “?” and any additional parameters must be preceded by an ampersand “&”. There is a limit of 256 bytes in the command but it is unlikely that your command will ever approach the limit.

Required Parameter:

where cbttname is the string which identifies the site in our database. CBTT (Columbia Basin TeleType) names are coordinated among various Federal agencies in the Pacific Northwest. As an example, the cbttname “HRSI” refers to the site Payette River near Horseshoe Bend, Idaho”. A list of sites which may be found in our database is at http://www.usbr.gov/pn/hydromet/decod_params.html. The Corps of Engineers maintains a complete CBTT list, many of which will not appear in this database, at http://www.nwd-wc.usace.army.mil/ftppub/cafe/station_info.

If no other parameters are specified, the report will include 15-minute data for the past 24 hours for all data types available at the site in a web-based table format.

Optional Parameters:

where datatype is the code used in our database for the desired information. A list of datatypes available for each station can be found at http://www.usbr.gov/pn/hydromet/decod_params.html. If the datatype is not specified, all available datatypes will be retrieved. The most commonly used datatypes are:

where hours is the number of hours to include in the report, looking back from the current time or the specified ending time (see parameter “end”). The default value is 24 hours. The maximum number of time periods that can be retrieved is 1000, so if you are collecting the default 15-minute data values (see parameter “incr”) you could specify “back” as large as 250 hours (four values per hour times 250 hours equals the maximum 1000 time periods). If you specify a combination of “incr” and “back” that would result in more than 1000 time periods, the “back” parameter will be automatically adjusted to limit the number of periods.

where minutes is the number of minutes between data values. The default is 15 minutes. Most Hydromet parameters are observed every 15 minutes, but in some cases you may only wish to see hourly data or perhaps 8-hourly data in your report. Generally, the increment must be an even multiple of 15 minutes, such as 30, 60, 120, etc. The maximum number of time periods that can be retrieved is 1000, so if you specify an “incr=60”, you could specify “back” (see parameter “back”) up to 1000 hours, thereby obtaining over 41 days of hourly data. If you specify a combination of “incr” and “back” that would result in more than 1000 time periods, the “back” parameter will be automatically adjusted to limit the number of periods. Note: If you want just “midnight” values, you should probably be using one of our other data tools to collect data from the ARCHIVES database, instead of this “dfcgi” program.

where hour_offset is the number of hours between the site’s local timezone and the Mountain Timezone (where the data server is located). This parameter is not usually needed, but may be used for sites located in the Pacific Timezone, where the hour_offset would be “-1”. This generally has no effect when the optional parameter “end” is used. Normally (unless “end” is specified), the retrieval includes data up through the current time on the server (Mountain Time). If data are retrieved from a site in the Pacific Timezone, specifying the “time=-1” parameter will result in a table that goes up through the current Pacific Time, one hour earlier. I may modify the program in the future to automatically set this parameter based upon the site, but currently you may set this manually if desired.

This has no effect upon the times shown for the data values, only upon the ending time of the data table that is retrieved. The time shown for a value is ALWAYS the correct local time, adjusted for standard or daylight savings time, at the actual remote data site. In other words, the time would reflect what your watch says at the location.

where yyyymmmdd is a date string in the strict format shown, such as “2004jan09”. This specifies the last day to be retrieved, before midnight. Note: “midnight” values are actually stored in our database as hour “0:00” of the next day… the last data value usually available for a site in a specific day is “23:45”, or 11:45 p.m. If not specified, data will be retrieved up to the current time in Mountain Timezone, or other time zone if changed with the “time” parameter. You can use the “last” parameter to retrieve historical data, rather than the current data. In the following example, we retrieve 216 hours (9 days) of hourly cumulative precipitation ending at 11 p.m. of April 9, 1991 at Scoggins Dam, near Beaverton, Oregon (this was a flooding event):

Where format_name is one of the supported output formats described below:

Generates a report which has imbedded HTML tags for convenient viewing with your web browser. The actual data values are presented in an HTML “table”.

Generates a report which has values presented in an HTML “table” without other unnecessary headings. Note – this format can be easily imported into Excel® spreadsheets. See the section in the Frequently Asked Questions, below, for assistance with importing the data.

Generates an ASCII text report using a fixed pitch font, similar to an old fashioned computer printout. Columns of data values are formatted with null (space) values as needed to align them. The results are presented with minimal HTML formatting between a header and trailer, with the actual data displayed as “preformatted” text.

This format emulates the output of one of our legacy data access programs. There is one data value per line, with timestamp. It is presented as fixed-pitch, space-delimited ASCII text as preformatted HTML.

This is very similar to format dayf0, but the data lines are formatted differently, using the SHEF (NWS Standard Hydrometeorological Exchange Format) “SHEF-A” format.

This is a SHEF-A format, as above, but with the year presented as a “y2k” compatible 4-digit number.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

1. What data sites are available in the database?

The “DAYFILES” database includes all real-time data collected since the beginning of the Hydromet system in the early 1980’s. Sites were added (and deleted) through the years. The period of record varies by site, too. Unfortunately, there is not a tool at this time to help identify the period of record for each site, but I’ll be working on that. The database includes sites in the Pacific Northwest that are of interest to the Bureau of Reclamation. Most of them are owned and operated by us, but we also collect and process some data from sites operated by other agencies including the US Geological Survey, the Corps of Engineers, the Idaho Department of Water Resources, the Oregon Water Resources Department, the Idaho Power Company, and probably a few others. A site list is available at http://www.usbr.gov/pn/hydromet/decod_params.html.

You can’t do it yourself,we need to do it for you. It is helpful if you already know what sites, data types, and format that you desire.

4. How do you get daily average flows and other daily data?