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[Datastream #GVA-464624]: obtaining archived 11 km NAM model results for Alaska

Hi Larry,

re:
> I'm trying to obtain archived mesoscale meteorological model results
> for the Cook Inlet, Alaska area for time periods in March and April,
> 2009, when Redoubt Volcano was erupting.  Ultimately I would like to
> use these results in CALMET to calculate the fine-scale wind field in
> this area, and incorporate those results into a volcanic ash dispersal
> model.
> 
> I'm not a meteorologist and hence not very experienced obtaining these
> data.  But I was able to find 11 km model results for Alaska at the
> following ucar site:
> 
> http://motherlode.ucar.edu:8080/thredds/catalog/fmrc/NCEP/NAM/Alaska_11km/catalog.html?dataset=fmrc/NCEP/NAM/Alaska_11km/NCEP-NAM-Alaska_11km_fmrc.ncd
> 
> I could not however find archived 11 km data at this site for March or
> April 2009.

Yes, that is because we do not archive the model data available on
motherlode; we provide access to the realtime data and scour data
off after a set number of days.

> Can you tell me whether such data are posted, and where I
> could obtain them?

Your best bet is to get the data from the National Climactic Data
Center (NCDC).  NCDC is the U.S. national repository for a large
variety of atmospheric science related data.  Here is the URL for
the NCDC website:

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/ncdc.html

> Also, if you can recommend any training courses in the acquisition and
> use of meteorological model results, I'd greatly appreciate it.

Once each year we host training workshops in the use of the tools
we make available free-of-charge to our community.  The next series
of workshops starts this coming Wednesday, July 29.  More information
on our workshop series can be found in the last item listed on
the Unidata HomePage:

http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/

Two or three of the workshops would likely have been of some interest to you:
the one on the Local Data Manager (LDM), the one on THREDDS Data Server (TDS),
and the one on the Integrated Data Viewer (IDV).  The LDM is used to
receive/relay/process realtime datastreams of meteorological data including
the high resolution model output that you mention above.  TDS is a package
that can serve the data at one's site.  The IDV can display/analyze the data
available from the TDS (in addition to locally held data, and data hosted
off of McIDAS ADDE servers).  It is too bad that you did not learn about
Unidata earlier since you could have benefited from attending one or
all of these workshops.  As you will see when you visit our HomePage,
registration for our training workshops is now closed.  It is possible
that an exception could be made if you wanted to attend the LDM workshop,
but I think that the TDS and IDV workshops are already full.  By the way,
our website provides online access to the materials used in most of
our workshops.  You can find those materials under each of the packages\
HomePages.  For instance:

LDM  - www.unidata.ucar.edu/software/ldm
IDV  - www.unidata.ucar.edu/software/idv

The THREDDS workshop materials are not yet online, but there is information
on the package here:

TDS  - www.unidata.ucar.edu/projects/THREDDS

The dates for our next training workshop series has not be set yet, but
it is likely to be in the fall of 2010 (we alternate between a summer
series and a fall series).

Also, NCAR/MMM just held a tutorial on use of the WRF model. This would
have been an excellent class to attend as it not only gives a good overview
of WRF, but it also addresses assimilation of data into WRF.  The WRF
Users Page:

http://www.mmm.ucar.edu/wrf/users/

indicates that the next WRF tutorial will be held on Jan 25 - Feb 5, 2010
here in Boulder, Colorado.

Cheers,

Tom
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Ticket Details
===================
Ticket ID: GVA-464624
Department: Support Datastream
Priority: Normal
Status: Closed