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[IDD #TQG-494849]: NLDN

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  • Subject: [IDD #TQG-494849]: NLDN
  • Date: Fri, 28 Jan 2011 08:47:26 -0700
Hi Michael,

re:
> Hello.  At the AMS conference this week, I spoke with
> a Vaisala representative at their exhibit.  He informed
> me at all researchers at UCAR universities (of which
> UW-Madison is one) have free access to National
> Lightning Data Network datasets.

Yes, the U.S. university community has had access to real-time NLDN
data via the Unidata LDM/IDD from the University of Albany (formerly
the State University of New York at Albany/SUNYA) since 1994.  There
is not, however, an archive of the data that is readily accessible.
I believe that UAlbany has an archive, but I don't know if they are
allowed to share data from it with others (the license with Vaisala
is pretty strict).

re: 
> How might I proceed
> to obtain specific lightning data?

Again, the data that is/will be available is delivered in real-time
through the Unidata LDM/IDD network.  I believe that UW/AOS is already
setup to get the NLDN data when it returns to the LDM/IDD in the near
future (the relay of the data was interrupted back in late August/early
September when Vaisala discontinued the satellite broadcast of the
NLDN data, and that was how UAlbany was receiving the data before
packaging it for transmission in the IDD LIGHTNING (aka NLDN) datastream.
I am currently working with UAlbany to restore ingest of the data;
I hope to have the process working in the next 1-2 weeks.

re:
> In the past, Vaisala
> only allowed me a small sample of data, not enough
> for a real study, and wanted to charge an enormous fee
> for any further data.  But since UW-Madison is a UCAR
> university, that shouldn't have happened.

I have never known Vaisala to provide archived data to any UCAR
university site, but, then again, I was never investigating whether
this was a possibility.  I do recall that others have searched for
a readily accessible archive, but I never heard that Vaisala was
willing to provide access to theirs (as you pointed out, they have
a high charge for access).

Question:

- what department are you in at UW-Madison?

Cheers,

Tom
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Ticket Details
===================
Ticket ID: TQG-494849
Department: Support IDD
Priority: Normal
Status: Closed