Unidata Python tutorial at SEA 2016.

The 2016 UCAR Software Engineering Assembly (SEA) Software Engineering Conference and Tutorials (https://sea.ucar.edu/conference/2016) just wrapped up at UCAR's Center Green facility in Boulder, Colorado. The week long conference took place April 4–8, 2016, and focused on “Data Science for scientific disciplines.” Unidata staff were on hand, and on the final day, held a python tutorial titled “Visualizing meteorological data with Python: Use cases with Siphon and MetPy.” Over 40 people participated in the tutorial.

This is Part 2 of a series of notebooks showing how to plot GINI-formatted satellite data from a THREDDS server using MetPy and Siphon. In Part 1 we covered how to access and parse the data file. In this part, we cover:

• Grabbing the data from the file
• Making sense of the projection information
• Plotting with CartoPy and matplotlib

This is the first of what we hope will be a series of posts showing how to use Python for weather analysis and create graphics for a variety of purposes. In this two-part post, we demonstrate plotting a water vapor satellite image, specifically using GINI formatted data. GINI is the format currently used for satellite data transmitted across NOAAPORT, and is available on Unidata's demonstration THREDDS server. This first part focuses on accessing the data using Siphon and MetPy; the second part will introduce plotting using CartoPy.

The Geographic Information Systems program at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) seeks to foster sharing of knowledge about the Earth system using GIS tools. The program encompasses a number of projects aimed at integrating natural and social sciences data in GIS, improving spatial the accuracy and usability of weather and climate models, and building capacity in the atmospheric science community.

A weather display from the Mapes IDV Collection

Three new IDV tutorials created by Dr. Brian Mapes of the University of Miami's Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences (RSMAS) are available on Unidata's YouTube channel. The new tutorials introduce the Mapes IDV Collection, which is a curated compilation of IDV bundles and "templates" delivered in the form of an IDV plugin. Dr. Mapes is building the Collection to bring together and provide easy access to some interesting datasets and displays that he uses in his own research and teaching.

We encourage those interested in learning more about the IDV to watch and send comments and feedback to the Unidata IDV development team or to Dr. Mapes. We are open to suggestions for future screencast topics, and encourage you to send in topic requests.

3D parcel trajectories displayed in the IDV.

New IDV tutorials are available on Unidata's YouTube channel. The most recent tutorials address the topics of:

• navigating within the three-dimensional IDV display,
• saving and restoring work using the IDV bundle mechanism,
• and working with three-dimensional parcel trajectory displays.

IDV tutorial videos are now available.

Following suggestions from our Users and steering committees, Unidata has begun creating short video tutorials designed to introduce viewers to different aspects of our software. Our plan is to create new videos (and update existing videos) as time and resources allow.