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20001204: radar data



Kevin,

The NIDS files on the NWS server have 2 lines that preceed the NIDS
image. These are the WMO and PIL lines.

Eg, the products look like:

SDUS53 KBOU 041200
N0RFTG
{nids product}


GEMPAK currently expects that the transmission stuff is removed,
since the NIDS data had not previously been available over NOAAPORT
and so the products never had these transmission headers before.
You can use the unix "tail" command to remove these lines, such as:

tail +3 sdus55_kbou_270603_n0rftg > sdus55_kbou_270603_n0rftg.dat

The tail command above will copy the file beginning at line 3
to a new file (with the .dat extension). 

The next release of GEMPAK will  handle products with transmission
headers prepended, as well as products that use the zlib compression.


If you have profiler data, then you need to know if it is in BUFR format,
of NETCDF format. The data from FSL (hourly and 6 minute) is generally
in NetCDF format. The hourly summaries on NOAAPORT is in BUFR.

I have decoders for either type. Generally, the NetCDF files from FSL
are preferable since they have 6 minute resolution.

Steve Chiswell
Unidata User Support





On Mon, 4 Dec 2000, Kevin Polston wrote:

> Hi Steve,
> 
> I have a question for you regarding NWS radar data.  I am running the
> NAWIPS software (the latest version 5.6), and I am wanting to download
> the radar data that the NWS is distributing. I believe you can access it
> by ftp'ing to ptgftp.nws.noaa.gov and then changing to the appropriate
> directory.  I have tried downloading the base reflectivity data but I
> can't seem to get it to display using either GARP, NMAP, or NSAT. In
> NMAP I can get the little red "tick marks" at the white window at the
> bottom of the display but when I click on load nothing happens. In GARP,
> I can't get the file to display in the window in which to load the data.
> I don't know if it is because I am naming the file wrong, if I don't
> have the directory structure set up properly (although I think I do), or
> do I need to do "something" to the data itself (such as using a decoder)
> or what. I am stumped at what do do so if you have any suggestions I
> would appreciate it. I had asked Bob Rozumalski about amonth or so ago
> about this data being able to be displayed in NAWIPS and he said it
> should be.  
> 
> In addition, from this same FTP site I believe you can access profiler
> data. What would I need to do to be able to display the profiler data? I
> had tried once before to download it and display it but I had no
> success. I am wondering if I am doing something wrong. Once again, any
> help you can give me would be greatly appreciated.
> 
> Thanks!
> 
> Kevin Polston
> Senior Instructor, NWSTC
> Kansas City MO
> 
>