[IDV #THF-657749]: Radar Data From Texas Mesonet and Iowa State Mesonet

Hi Jacob-

> Thanks for your reply.  When you mentioned the NSF and UCAR servers, are
> you referring to TDS NEXRAD radar from the thredds catalog?  I am having
> some difficulty with TDS NEXRAD radar because when I load in radar files
> from this server the most recent radar display is not current, but is
> often over 10 minutes old and sometimes even 20 minutes old.
> The most recent radar files from the Iowa State Mesonet and Texas
> Mesonet servers are always within a few minutes of the actual time and
> often are only a minute away from the actual time.

The latest file on the mesonet servers is not a complete volume until the
next volume starts arriving.  If you go to page for the latest day's data for a
particular station, and keep reloading the page, you'll see that the file
size of the latest file keeps growing until a new file shows up.  The files
come in in chunks.  On the TDS servers, we do not make the file available
until the entire volume is available.  Otherwise, autoupdate would not
work and RHI cross sections would not show the entire scan.  If you tried
to look at higher level scans, you would probably get a data not found
(or worse) error with one of the unfinished files.  The amount of time between
the time the first piece of the file is available and the availability of
the entire volume is dependent on the scanning mode.  In storm mode, it would
be 5 minutes, precip mode 6 minutes and clear air 10 minutes.  

If you have autoupdate on in the IDV, the time between the update interval 
could increase when the display actually refreshes.

I'll look into this a little further to see if there is an issue that would
create a really long (20 minute) update time, but in the past hour, I've seen
that for Miami, the volume is available at the time it should be.

If you can give me a specific station that you are seeing a problem with, I can
investigate further.

Don
> On Mon, 2008-12-29 at 13:12 -0700, Unidata IDV Support wrote:
> > Hi Jacob-
> >
> > > Full Name: Jacob Gore
> > > Email Address: address@hidden
> > > Organization: Educational
> > > Package Version: 2.6 build date:2008-12-24 18:07 UTC
> > > Operating System: Linux
> > > Hardware: Java: home: /home/idv/IDV_2.6/jre version: 1.6.0_11 j3d:1.5.2 
> > > fcs (build4)
> > > Description of problem: Hello;
> > > I have a question regarding the display of level 2 radar data from
> > > Iowa State and Texas Mesonet sites in the IDV.
> > > I can currently load in level 2 radar data from both Iowa State Mesonet 
> > > and
> > > Texas Mesonet servers into the IDV successfully.  However, I have to 
> > > manually
> > > download the individual radar files from their server pages online and 
> > > then open
> > > them in the IDV.
> > > Is there a way the IDV can perform an automatic download and then
> > > automatic update of level 2 radar data from either of these level 2 radar 
> > > servers
> > > without having to do anything manually?  Can this be performed within the 
> > > IDV totally
> > > without having to go to the server sites?
> > > If so, how can I do this?
> > > The link to both of these server sites is below:
> > >
> > > Texas Mesonet Level 2 directory:
> > > http://mesonet.tamu.edu/products/RADAR/nexrad/CRAFT/
> > > Iowa State Mesonet Level 2 directory:
> > > http://mesonet.agron.iastate.edu/data/nexrd2/raw/
> > >
> > > Thanks for your time and support!
> >
> >
> > Not without them running a THREDDS Data Server.  Is there a problem
> > using the UCAR or NSF servers?
> >
> > Don Murray
> >
> > Ticket Details
> > ===================
> > Ticket ID: THF-657749
> > Department: Support IDV
> > Priority: Normal
> > Status: Open
> >
> --
> Jacob Gore
> 
> 


Ticket Details
===================
Ticket ID: THF-657749
Department: Support IDV
Priority: Normal
Status: Open