Section: 4.4.0 Loading WSR-88D Level II Radar Data

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4.4.0 Loading WSR-88D Level II Radar Data

Level II data is accessed in the IDV from files on your local disk, each file having data from one WSR-88D radar for all sweeps (tilt) for one time.

For the exercises in this section, we will use Level II data corresponding to the same times as the Level III data we used from the Bow Echo Case study in in the workshop dataset. See Installing local datasets for more information if you need to install these data.

Setup for Level II displays

If other displays and data are already loaded, select the Edit->Remove All Displays and Data menu item or the icon in the toolbar to clear them out.
Make sure the menu item Projections->Auto-set Projection option is checked on.
Show the 3D wireframe box by toggling on the main menu item View->Show->Wireframe Box.

Open the Level II Data Source Chooser

Open the Data Source Chooser.
In the Data Source Chooser click on the Radar tab. Then click on the Level II tab to see the Level II radar data chooser panel.
Use the directory (folder) selector to find the radar station data you want.
- Go to the directory where the data are stored (e.g., /data/idv/level2/).
- Go to the directory with the name of the station id, KDVN.
- Select all the files.
- Click the Add Source button.

The data source Level II Radar (TLX) appears in the Data Sources list in the Field Selector.

Lets look at some of the properties of this dataset.

Open the Data Source Properties editor for Level II Radar Data (DVN).

If you are looking at realtime data, you can set up the file polling information here to automatically reload new data as it becomes available.
If the volume scans do not contain station information and you did not set the station information in the chooser, you can change the location using the widget in the properties dialog.
Subset the times and choose the last five times from 1998-06-29 21:35:57Z to 1998-06-29 21:59:36Z and click OK.

Level II data has three Fields (radar data moments or data types). The IDV has several display types for Level II data. Any of the moments can be shown with any of the displays. For the following exercises, we will use Reflectivity.

Unidata IDV Workshop for version 2.5 > Accessing and Displaying Data > WSR-88D Level II Data Displays