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.
Don Murray of the University of Colorado at Boulder's Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) has provided an IDV bundle depicting the May 20, 2013 storm in central Oklahoma. The bundle combines satellite and radar imagery centered on Moore, OK, where a massive tornado caused extensive damage.
Version 6.11.5 of the LDM has been released. This version doesn't have the "libxml2" package bundled-in; consequently, the "libxml2" development package must be installed on the host system before the LDM package can be built. The development package is necessary because the runtime package doesn't have the required header-files (development packages usually have the word "devel" in their name). If you're using version 6.11.4 of the LDM, have not encountered any problems with it, and don't care which "libxml2" package the LDM uses, then there's no need to upgrade to LDM 6.11.5.
Version 4.3.1 of the netCDF Operators (NCO) has been released. NCO is an Open Source package that consists of a dozen standalone, command-line programs that take netCDF files as input, then operate (e.g., derive new data, average, print, hyperslab, manipulate metadata) and output the results to screen or files in text, binary, or netCDF formats.
Since the last update, which involved testing only the ingest and decoding of CONDUIT 0.5/2.5 degree GFS, I've opened up the NGRID and NEXRAD3 feeds, as well as text and satellite products from the WMO and NIMAGE feeds, respectively.
The goal is to compare the speed of the grid decoder on high-resolution CONDUIT GFS runs alone versus running in parallel with the full nationwide NEXRAD3 feed and other products.
Vaisala's National Lightning Detection Network (NLDN) began operation in 1983 as a regional network run by the State University of New York at Albany. Since then, the network has expanded to monitor cloud-to-ground lightning activity across the continental United States, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
As previously described in this post, the Unidata Program Center's primary THREDDS Data Server (TDS), currently using the domain name "motherlode.ucar.edu" is being phased out in favor of the new domain name "thredds.ucar.edu". The domain name "motherlode.ucar.edu" will not work for TDS access after August 1, 2013.
UPDATE: Please note that this change affects connections to the THREDDS Data Server only. Other services provided by motherlode.ucar.edu will remain in operation until further notice.
Last month we received the first version of AWIPS II which included the new unified grib decoder (13.1.2). The install procedure for 13.1.2 was more complicated than usual - we needed the full 13.1.1 installation plus a 13.1.2 "update" - so around 8 GB of RPMs to manage.
If you're unfamiliar with what the unified grib decoder is, here's a quick rundown: before 13.1.2, the D2D perspective (for WFOs) and the National Centers Perspective (for NCEP centers) required separate data decoders and database tables for grib messages. D2D used a decoder called grib, while NCP used a decoder called ncgrib. If you didn't want to bog down your system, you could only run one at a time, meaning: depending on your server configuration, gridded model data would only be visible in one perspective, not both.
