Fall Workshops
The Fall GEMPAK workshop is scheduled for September 28-30. Registration for the workshop has continued to be high this year, with 14 attendees currently anticipated.
DCSHEF
DCSHEF is a new decoder for hydrologic and meteotological data distributed over FOS and NOAAPORT in the SHEF (Standard Hydrologic Exchance Format) data format. This data provides many cooperative observations for meteorological data as well as river and dam information such as stream flow, discharge rates, water temperature, and flood information, as well as forest service, agriculture, and USGS meaurements such as snowpack and evaporation potential.
GARP
Garp 2.01 has been released to the Unidata community as a patch to Unidata's N-AWIPS 5.4 release. Additional features in version 2.0 allow users to customize all map backgrounds plotted in gempak, including selectively displaying any map for a given plot scale. For example, as a user zooms in on a region- county maps and roads can be made to be "turned on" once a threshold reolution is reached. Other features include user customizations for additional data sets. The ability to add additional data sets to Garp makes it possible, for example, to add lightning plotting to the available surface data sets to be selected from. Additional user documentation accessible through the local browser is available.
GDBIINT
I have developed a program called GDBIINT to convert gridded data from one projection to a different projection. Many users had expressed a desire to be able to convert their local model output to other projections for comparing different models against one another. This program uses bi-linear interpolation to compute the interpolated value of the grid field to the gridpoint location of the output projection. The GEMPAK community has responded enthusiatically to the usefullness of this program.
Higher resolution maps
I have added additional high resolution map databases created from the AWIPS shapefile catalogs. New state and county outlines, zone boundaries, interstates, state and US highways, and major arterial locations are available. Higher resolution maps are increasingly useful for mesoscale modeling and NIDS/lightning types of data. The added resolution in the coastal boundaries is particularly noticeable. GARP 2.x posseses the capability to define which map databases are used for a given display resolution, enabling the user to benefit from the highest resolution of maps possible without over loading the drawing necessary for larger scale displays.
Future plans for NAWIPS-5.4.3
NAWIPS-5.4.3 release will unveil NMAP, a product generation program being developed at NCEP which will incorporate a graphical user interface with the ability to produce interactive analyses. As a result of the relocation of the Aviation Weather Center to Kansas City, the ability to produce graphics previously rendered with the Integraph system is being replaced with a GUI interface for N-AWIPS. Many of the products produced by the AWC are found on DIFAX as products known as manual graphics, such as the surface analyses, weather conditions, hazzardous weather outlooks etc.
With NMAP, universities will have the capability for students to analyze frontal positions on screen using a wide range of products available including surface and upperair data, satellite and radar imagery, model grids and objectively analyzed data. The development of NMAP will signal a new direction of interactive teaching capabilities in the meteorological laboratory.
NCEP provided a demonstration copy of NMAP to Unidata for use in the September, 1997 package workshop. A release date for NAWIPS-5.4.3 has not been finalized at this time.
NetCDF Profiler data decoder released
FSL has started sending 6 minute and hourly summary NetCDF profiler data sets to Unidata in preparation for a new IDD feed. In order to incorporate these data sets into GEMPAK, I have released a new decoder (dcncprof) which will allow the IDD data to be decoded in real-time from the LDM, or from online data sets. The dcncprof decoder will also support the older Unidata-Wisconsin feed profiler data format for legacy applications.
NCEP grid access
Unidata has persued a relationship with NCEP and the USWRP to provide greater access to model data currently available through ftp. I have updated the capabilities of DCGRIB to handle additional grib data that may be obtained through the IDD as a result of this effort.
Currently, I am distributing augmented sets of NCEP model data to University of Illinois, University of Washington, and Penn State University via the IDD including ensemble MRF, meso-eta, hourly ruc analyses, eta runs on grid #104, global data asimilations, and MRF 1 degree global grids through 384 hours. Dcgrib is capable of handling all of these datasets. NCEP has installed an LDM and is now sending many of the gridded data sets. The amount of data available in this data stream is significant, and testing is underway to determine the best way to fan the data out onto the IDD. Many additional data sets including RUC2 hybrid, boundary layer, and pressure level forecasts as well as 4 daily ETA runs are currently being distributed on high resolution AWIPS grids.
Platform Additions
I have ported GEMPAK to Solaris X86 to provide a low cost alternative for PC platforms. Solaris X86 has several advantages to Linux- such as the availability of vendor supported compilers, as well as MOTIF which is included with the operating system. Sun has announced education incentives allowing many sites free access to the operating system.
Ongoing Additions
COMET case studies 1-12 now available via CODIAC
COMET case studies are compatible with the GEMPAK/NAWIPS environment, and are now being made available via the CODIAC system. Ethan Davis is working to provide on line browsing and access to the data sets.
Cases currently announced:
- 11-14 March 1993 (Storm of the Century)
- 06 December 1995 - Midwest Snow Event
- 2-4 Aug 1995 - Hurricane Erin
- 5 May 1996 - Paducah, Kentucky bow echo event
- 4-5 Jan 1995 - Lake Ontario lake effect snow case
- 17-19 Jun 1996 - Chicago Flood/Oakfield Tornado
- 13-13 Mar 1996 - High Plains Snow event
- Dec 31-Jan 3, 1997 - California flood event
- 6 Mar 1996 - Extreme Icing Event
- 26-28 May 1997 - Southeastern Severe Weather
- 28-29 July 1997 - Fort Collins Flood
- 27 March 1994 - Gravity Waves triggering deep convection and tornadoes in Alabama
GEMPAK workshop and tutorial online
All the handouts/displays for the GEMPAK workshop are been made available through the GEMPAK web page tutorial. Included in the presentation are numerous sample exercises and output samples. This format of presentation allows workshop participants to be able to review or utilize any of the material at their home institution. The tutorial will be updated for N-AWIPS 5.4.3 as available.
The GEMPAK tutorial can be found at:
http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/software/gempak/tutorial
