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[IDV #EMR-410811]: IDV question: plot mesonet data

Hi Qun-

> I am trying to plot some mesonet data as station mode overlaid with a radar 
> image. My question is how to load the mesonet data (format?) and plot as 
> station mode?

It will depend on the format.  We support netCDF and text point data files. The
best netCDF format would be the Unidata Observation Convention at:

http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/software/netcdf-java/formats/UnidataObsConvention.html

For text, here's a description that's not publicly available:

Perhaps the simplest way is to create a text file that contains one observation 
value per line, including date/time, latitude, longitude as well as the 
parameter(s) you have - separated by blank(s)

Once you create the text file, you need to put in two "header" lines. here's an 
example:

recNum-> (Latitude, Longitude, Altitude, type(Text), time, turb_intensity)
time[fmt=yyyyMMddHH], obtime, skip, type(Text), skip, skip, Latitude, 
Longitude[scale=-1], Altitude[unit=ft], Altitude2[unit=ft], turb_intensity, skip
2004050100 0005 34 C210 1 T 38.82 92.22 7000 7000 0 -9
2004050100 0004 35 PA32 0 T 35.40 98.62 4000 4000 0 -9
2004050100 0008 58 A36 0 T 29.18 81.05 5000 5000 2 -9

Note: the first line begins with 'recNum', the second line begins with 
"time[fmt=...", and then the data. Each "field" is comma-separated!

The first line describes the "shape" of your data -- in the case of "point" 
observations, you _must_ have "recNum" as the "domain", and all the other 
parameters as the "range" -- that's just the way it works...You should also use 
the standard names "Latitude", "Longitude" and "time" for those parameters. The 
rest of the parameters you can define "aliases" for so you can create a station 
model, if needed (as we did in this case).

The second line describes the ordering of the parameters in the text file 
itself. With a ".txt" extension, the values (lines 3-> N) are blank-separated, 
as shown). note that for each parameter, you can define things like "units" and 
"scale" as shown. For text-only fields, you _must_ use the form shown for the 
parameters named "type" (that is: "type(Text)").

The special value "skip" is used to, well, skip a field in the text file that 
is not one of the named parameters.

Then, in the IDV Choose a Data Source from "files" and be sure to specify the 
"Data Source Type" as "Text point data files"...and like I said you might want 
to define some parameter aliases and a specialized station model...or not... 


> Thanks a lot in advance.
> 
> Qun
> 
> --------------------------
> Qun Miao
> Email: address@hidden
> Phone: 307-766-2992
> Doctoral Candidate
> Department of Atmospheric Science
> University of Wyoming
> 
> 


Ticket Details
===================
Ticket ID: EMR-410811
Department: Support IDV
Priority: Normal
Status: Open