[IDD #VBQ-884605]: Configure Actions, NCEP, Severe Wx Indices, & Software

Hi Massoud,

re: 
> Thanks again for your help in modifying pqact.conf. The actions you
> suggested are working and I'm currently collecting data entries for
> UNIWISC and FNEXRAD in my ~home/ldm/data/ directory.

Very good.

> How would you like
> me to uncompress the PNG-compressed images in AREA and GINI formats?

We make a package we call 'ldm-mcidas' available that contains decoders
for PNG-compressed AREA and GINI imagery.  The decoders can be run "by hand"
on individual files" or in pqact.conf actions.  There are binary distributions
of ldm-mcidas available for select operating systems.  Since I do not know
the specifics of the OS you are running your LDM on (other than it is Linux),
I can't advise you which binary to grab, or if it will work out of the box.

Please send me the output of 'uname -a' run as 'ldm' on your Linux machine.
After I have this info, I can better advise you how to setup the appropriate
ldm-mcidas decoders ('pnga2area' for PNG-compressed images in AREA format,
and 'pngg2gini' for PNG-compressed images in GINI format) on your machine.

> I would like to also collect NCEP data entries for GFS 80 km and NAM 12
> km (80 km preferred though). I have used 'notifyme' to look up the
> product id(s) for HDS and NGRID, but I'm having some difficulties
> writing out the regular expression that would match the products. Could
> you please give me some help again in this area?

I can provide examples that are specific to display and analysis packages
we provide (namely GEMPAK), but these are likely not exactly what you
want/need.  It seems to me that what you need is simple patterns to
FILE products in some sort of a hierarchical directory structure, true?

> I'm particularly
> interested in collecting (1) 200 mb hght, isotachs (jet stream), (2) 500
> mb vort, hght, wind, (3) 700 mb omega, hght, wind, (4) 850 mb temp,
> hght, wind, (5) surface analysis-dewpoints, and (6) surface analysis-precip.

The wind field information is sent in U and V components.  The rest are
available in individual GRIB messages.

> The severe wx indices from Ohio State (see link below) is also pretty
> useful for our research project. Do you know by any chance what the
> primary names are for these data's?
> 
> http://twister.sbs.ohio-state.edu/severe.html

The comment on the web page you reference is:

  Severe Weather Indices
  Analyzed severe weather indices updated twice daily at approximately 1105 and 
2305
  Eastern. Fields are computed from observed upper air soundings. Further 
interpretation
  can be found on each index page.

The operative part of this comment is "Fields are computed from observed upper 
air
soundings".  The indicies are not products that are shipped in any of our 
datastreams.

> Lastly, after I collect all the weather data that I need, which Unidata
> software do you recommend I could use to simply display each of them as
> an image?

I would suggest that you think about using GEMPAK as the displays in the web 
page
you reference were created by GEMPAK.  Also, the GEMPAK distribution comes with
complete sets of pqact.conf actions to use to decode things into 
GEMPAK-compatible
formats.  If you are looking for more of a push-button system for display and
analysis of the various fields that you have indicated an interest in, then 
GEMPAK
will likely be a good choice.  Also the latest release of GEMPAK (and McIDAS 
also)
supports analysis and display of the PNG-compressed images in AREA and GINI 
formats
_without_ the need to decode them using 'ldm-mcidas' decoders.

If you are interested in GEMPAK, please look through the GEMPAK materials at:

http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/software/gempak

Also, there is a training workshop for GEMPAK and the LDM (among other things)
that will be held at the end of July.  Details on the workshops we offer can
be found in links from our HomePage:

http://www.unidata.ucar.edu

> You have been such a great help to me and I can't thank you enough.

No worries.  Please consider attending workshops for GEMPAK and the LDM.
They should provide the answers to all of the questions you have asked
and more :-).

Cheers,

Tom
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Ticket Details
===================
Ticket ID: VBQ-884605
Department: Support IDD
Priority: Normal
Status: Closed