20010403: NEXRAD product VAD

>From:  Russ Dengel <address@hidden>
>Organization:  SSEC
>Keywords:  200104031727.f33HR5L01938 McIDAS-X NEXRAD ADDE

Russ,

>        First of all, thanks for helping Randy with the the new version
>of CIRCLE. He wanted to be able to draw the radial lines using  DASHing
>mode.

No problem.  Randy is running my distribution of McIDAS, so it behooved
me to jump in.

>        Secondly, supposedly tomorrow we will be getting a whole new
>batch of NEXRAD products including the Velocity Azimuth Display (VAD).
>People here (including me) are wondering if your server will work on
>these data.

You sent this yesterday, but I was out skiing :-)

As far as I know, all of the new _image_ products that will be added to
the broadcast are supported.  There are several products in the NEXRAD
Level III set that are not images and are not supported by nexradir/nexraget.
The two "important" ones that come to mind right off are the VAD (Velocity
Azimuth Display (vertical profiles of wind from the radars)) and the
Digital Precipitation Array.  The VAD is a graphic and the Digital Precip.
Array is a grid.  Some time ago, Dan Vietor (author of WXP) clued us
in to the possibility of extracting some useful data from the VAD (wind
elevations, speeds, and directions to within 15 degrees).  Linda Miller
and I were just talking about the possibility of me creating a decoder
for the VAD products, but it will have to go on the end of my ridiculous
list of things to do.

I guess we will find out today if the new NOAAPORT products are standard
enough to be supported by nexradir/nexraget.  By standard, I mean that
the products look like zlib compressed versions of the original PUP
products.

Tom
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