Proposed Unidata-Wisconsin Datastream Changes

In response to requests that have been made by South American community members, the UPC is proposing to add GOES-10 images to the Unidata-Wisconsin (UNIWISC aka MCIDAS) datastream.

The change would include:

Proposed additions to the IDD UNIWISC datastream

Proposed GOES-10 Sectors 20070501: 1415, 1515, 1628, 1715 20070219: Animation
GOES-10 Imager Channel Broadcast Frequency Proposed GOES-10 Sector
Areal Coverage		 Compressed Broadcast Size Uncompressed Size on Disk
0.65 um Visible 15 minute South America (display MAG=-2) 2.9 MB 5.4 MB
3.9 um Shortwave IR 15 minute South America (display MAG=-2) 2.3 MB 5.4 MB
6.8 um Water Vapor 15 minute South America (display MAG=-2) 0.8 MB 5.4 MB
10.7 um Thermal IR 15 minute South America (display MAG=-2) 2.4 MB 5.4 MB
12.0 um Longwave IR 15 minute South America (display MAG=-2) 2.4 MB 5.4 MB
Current GOES-East Sectors 20070501: 1415, 1515, 1615, 1715 20070502: 1415, 1515, 1615, 1715

Notes:

  1. the volume of the GOES-10 compressed products in the UNIWISC datastream would vary depending on weather, but would likely range from 32 to 45 MB/hour (VIS image sectors, the least compressibly, are not broadcast at night)

  2. the maximum increase in disk space needed to store all images in uncompressed, McIDAS AREA file format would be approximately 108 MB/hour of data kept online

    NB: both GEMPAK and McIDAS (as of v2006f) can use the PNG-compressed UNIWISC and FNEXRAD imagery directly; there is no need to uncompress the images if using either of these two packages. IDV access to the compressed images via ADDE is supported by virtue of the McIDAS support.

  3. the IDD product headers will allow sites to select only those images that they want to receive. In particular, users will be able to:

    • choose the temporal frequency of the sectors requested
    • choose which bands to get
    • easily get only the currently broadcast GOES-East composites
    • easily get only the GOES-10 sectors
    • easily get all of the data

  4. barring objections, the broadcast of the proposed GOES-10 sectors would begin in early to mid-June, 2007.

Your Input Is Requested

Please send all questions, comments, and concerns regarding the proposed changes to support-datastream AT unidata.ucar.edu.

by Tom Yoksas