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  How big is STORET ?

  Well, sit down, relax, and let me try to give you some idea.

  STORET contains data on about 800,000 sampling sites (stations)

  There are 200,000,000 individual data observations.

  Numbers like these are mind-boggling.  For perspective, let us
  consider printing (as computer-printed reports) all these data.

  A useful format might be that used by the STORET program "ALLPARM",
  which has the ability to print all the data at selected sites.

  This "ALLPARM" format gets about 300 data observations per page,
  at a rate of about 6 per line.

  At this density of data, STORET (the whole system) could be printed
  as follows.

            Total printed lines          33,300,000
            Total printed pages             666,000
            Boxes of paper                      324
            Size of pile of boxes        5 x 8 x 10 (feet)
            Weight of pile of boxes          10,000 pounds
            Printing time (1200 l.p.m.)         460 hours
                    8 hrs/day, 22 days/month    2.6 months

  High speed printing is not a free resource.  At the cost of $0.77 per
  thousand lines, the above 5 tons of paper would cost about $25,000.

  We estimate the computer time at about another $1,000.00.

  In round numbers, if it's data you want, price is no object, and you
  have ten or twelve weeks to kill, we can print you your own copy of
  STORET, at just about $26,000.00.
