Community Newsletter
Volume II, Number 4, July 2005

Contents

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Training Workshop has International Appeal

Software Updates

GEMPAK. A new release, GEMPAK 5.8.3a, was announced July 23, 2005. Here are a few of its features:
Grid programs now able to use grids of differing navigations in computations; GIF files can be exported from NMAP2 and the XW device driver; addition of new Ensemble Diagnostics; addition of Vertical Layer Diagnostics.
LEAD. The LEAD project held its second year NSF Site Review on July 21st and 22nd at NCSA at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign The Site Review Panel had the following to say about the project: "The panel is generally very pleased with the overall project, especially the excellent collaborations and integrations between disciplines. LEAD takes on one of the most challenging problems in atmospheric science and computational science today."
McIDAS. New Release: Unidata McIDAS-X v2005 and SSEC McIDAS-X for Windows XP v2005a are now available for download from the Unidata web site, http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/software/mcidas.
Unidata McIDAS v2005 represents a bundle of SSEC's v2005a McIDAS-X for Unix release, McIDAS-XCD v2005, and Unidata additions, modifications, and bug fixes. Highlights of the release include the final step in the transition to use of a single port for ADDE transfers (112), modifications to both the SSEC and Unidata GUIs, modifications/bugfixes to several IMG* commands, and the addition of scripts to help users configure their McIDAS-X and McIDAS-XCD installations.

Contact: support@unidata.ucar.edu for assistance with your software questions or to subscribe to an e-mail list to learn more about the software packages that you use or those you would like to learn more about.

Rich Weather Information Cache

Farmers in Kentucky have a powerful tool housed at the state university in Lexington. The University of Kentucky's Ag Weather (the UK Agricultural Weather Center Web) has developed a comprehensive web site that serves not only Kentucky farmers and gardeners but is a resource for people in 1100 counties in the region within and surrounding the Bluegrass state.

With the very first click readers are greeted with a synopsis of current agricultural weather conditions. A recent outlook included the following: "Current drying conditions are good west, good central, and fair east. The livestock heat stress category is no stress west, no stress central, and no stress east." Pretty useful information if you're farming in any of the region's agricultural areas.

In addition to weather information (current conditions, forecasts and the like) links to drought, hydrology, fire weather/danger, and pest and disease warnings are also available. County-by-county watches, warnings, and special weather statements help to inform the public about hazardous conditions so that appropriate steps can be taken to protect crops and livestock and safeguard human life.

The site makes considerable use of LDM-delivered data and GEMPAK software for visualization. Unidata's GEMPAK developer, Steve Chiswell, worked collaboratively with Kentucky meteorologist, Tom Priddy, and Ag Weather staff to set up some of the displays. For example see: http://wwwagwx.ca.uky.edu/ldm-images/latestky.gif , http://wwwagwx.ca.uky.edu/ldm-images/latesthti.gif , and http://wwwagwx.ca.uky.edu/ldm-images/cornacc.gif

The site experiences over one million hits per month and has been so demonstrably effective that its developers are preparing a proposal to take the concept nation-wide.

Unidata is proud to be a part of this successful site. See: http://wwwagwx.ca.uky.edu/

Training Workshops

The 2005 Unidata Training Workshops have been running since July 20. Thus far approximately 68 participants have attended the classes which are being held this year in the Unidata Conference Room. Attendees represent 28 U.S. universities, five U.S. government agencies (other than NOAA), eight NOAA staff, eight UCAR staff, a couple of military organizations, and a sprinkling from the private sector. In addition, six foreign countries are represented among the attendees which include Taiwan, Columbia, Costa Rica, Brazil, Japan, and Romania.

The Romanian participants, Oana Nicola and Alina Hofnar (shown above with Unidata staff member Emily Doremire), first learned about the McIDAS software at a conference in Spain. There they made the decision to come to Boulder for the next training workshop. While in Colorado, they've attended a conference at Copper Mountain before arriving in Boulder for the McIDAS workshop which winds up on Thursday the fourth of August. After that they head home to Bucharest. There Oana and Alina are employed by the National Administration of Meteorology a government agency and degree-granting institution.

Shown below are some of the participants in the first LDM workshop with developer Steve Emmerson leading the class.

News Briefs

  • DeSouza Awards: a call for nominations for the Russell DeSouza Award for 2005 has been sent to the community. If there's someone in the community you would like to nominate who meets the award's criteria of an individual "whose energy, expertise, and active involvement enable the Unidata Program to better serve geoscience. Honorees personify Unidata's ideal of a community that shares data, software, and ideas through computing and networking technologies " Please provide a brief perspective/description of the nominee's contributions to the Unidata community and send your nomination to: nominations@unidata.ucar.edu before 30 September 2005. Presentation of the award will take place at the AMS Annual Meeting next January in Atlanta.

Send comments to info@unidata.ucar.edu.

 

Unidata is sponsored by the National Science Foundation