20011101: VAD support and ADDITION OF RADAR PRODUCTS TO NOAAPORT

>From: McIDAS Help Desk <address@hidden>
>Organization: SSEC
>Keywords: 200111011753.fA1HrS102878 LDM pqact VAD DMNEXR

Barry,

Barry wrote Brian Hoeth:

>You're not seeing the products because the McIDAS-XCD filer needs to be
>modified to accommodate the header changes (since the products now have
>headers other than SDUS5*). Jerry and Russ updated the filer on our test
>machine today, and it's filing the BREF2, BREF248, BREF3, BREF4, BVEL2
>and PRECIP1 products for MRX. But it's not filing them for SRVEL2,
>SRVEL3, SRVEL4 and TOPS at the current time. We believe we're not
>getting those four products because they're issued only when the radar
>is in precip mode (and it looks like MRX has been in clear-air mode most
>of the day). 
>
>It is filing something for VAD, but we can't list it correctly at the
>current time (an IMGLIST shows zeroes for day and time, and DERIVED in
>the Satellite/Sensor field).
>
>Once we get the filer tested and we believe it's working correctly, we
>will issue an addendum for -XCD sites. I would hope that would be
>sometime next week.

>Tom,
>Do you know if the NEXRAD servers should handle the VAD products? If so,
>how will the user display it (assuming it looks like what's shown in
>http://okfirst.ocs.ou.edu/train/nids/tlxx2314_nwp.gif)?

No, the NEXRAD servers are for planar displays only.

I never wrote a decoder for the VAD winds because the product is more
of a picture than a file of data.  Dan Vietor did tell me a long time
ago that one could extract some quantative values from the product, but
at the time Unidata folks were basically only getting 3 NEXRADs, so it
didn't see like the gain was worth the effort.

Earlier today I had the an email exchange about this subject with Robert
Mullenax (of Universal Weather).  In that exchange, I asked Robert
for a favor:

"I have an idea :-)  How about you dig up the documentation for the VAD
products (or strike up a conversation on on of the email lists and see
if someone already has the documentation/techniques) and see if one
really can extract wind direction, speed, and height?  If the job is
not incredibly horrible, I will try and pump out an ldm-mcidas decoder
to write the VAD winds into an MD file whose schema will match that of
the 6-minute wind profiler.  This way, all of the data could be written
to one file and hosted through ADDE.

(Soap box time) It seems to me that GEMPAK users are always doing a
bunch of the leg work for new decoders, but the same is never done by
McIDAS users.  It is time for the McIDAS community to become more
interactive!"

Robert agreed noting:

"I'll do that Tom.  It would be of use for Universal and NSBF.
I asked SSEC about it as well..haven't heard back from them
as of yet.  Steve confirmed for me yesterday that GEMPAK
will not display them either. I wish I was truly a programmer
and could do more of this kind of stuff..but developing products
and keeping everything running keeps me occupied.  I will track
down the docs or ask around.

I agree about the McIDAS community needing to become more active.
I was shocked to hear from you how little interest there seems
to be in radar or much else these days.  Another golden opportunity
being passed up for learning is the fact that the AMRC stuff
isn't being used.  Give students the task everyday of issuing
a forecast for the Willie Field AWS/ for Wille Field/Ice Runway,
and for the synoptic obs from McMurdo itself.  That would be
a great exercise..of course it's a bad word to mention operational
meteorology in academia now..even more so than when I was in school
15-20 years ago."

A final comment:  if/when I get the documentation I need to extract
values out of the VAD products, I will create a decoder for my
ldm-mcidas distribution AND contribute the code to the McIDAS Developer's
Forum.

>Thanks,
>Barry Roth
>McIDAS Help Desk
>address@hidden

Tom

>From address@hidden Thu Nov  1 17:41:42 2001
>To: "'McIDAS Help Desk'" <address@hidden>
>Cc: "'address@hidden'" <address@hidden>
>Subject: RE: FW: ADDITION OF RADAR PRODUCTS TO NOAAPORT
>Date: Thu, 1 Nov 2001 16:56:04 -0600 

Okay, thanks for the info.  I was starting to wonder if I was going crazy
cuz I checked out the HRS.SPL file and I saw that the MRX RADAR products are
indeed being ingested.  They're just not filing.

Let me know when the addendum is ready please.  Thanks!

Brian 

>From address@hidden Thu Nov  1 18:14:39 2001
>Date: Fri, 02 Nov 2001 01:23:07 +0000
>From: McIDAS Help Desk <address@hidden>
>To: Unidata Support <address@hidden>
>CC: "Hoeth, Brian" <address@hidden>,
>   address@hidden
>Subject: Re: 20011101: VAD support and ADDITION OF RADAR PRODUCTS TO NOAAPORT

Tom,
Thanks much for the information. The idea of writing VAD winds into an
MD file sounds neat. I forwarded your message on to the Dave, Dee, and
others so they'll get the info about VAD winds. 

I'm not sure if this helps at all in the quest to find out how to
extract info from the VAD products, but I found that NCEP has something
that they call the "NeXRaD Wind Decoder" available at
http://www.ncep.noaa.gov/NCO/DMQAB/Decoders/dcnxrd/

And now please forgive me if this is a stupid question. But seeing that
the VAD product is really a picture, would it be possible to serve it as
image data without navigation so it could be IMGDISPed into a frame with
an enhancement (VAD.ET) for the eight colors that VAD displays, or at
least the one at http://okfirst.ocs.ou.edu/train/nids/tlxx2314_nwp.gif,
apparently use (black background, gray grid, white text, and
green,yellow,red,cyan,magenta for the various wind speeds)?

Barry

Unidata Support wrote:
> 
> >From: McIDAS Help Desk <address@hidden>
> >Organization: SSEC
> >Keywords: 200111011753.fA1HrS102878 LDM pqact VAD DMNEXR
> 
> Barry,
> 
> Barry wrote Brian Hoeth:
> 
> >You're not seeing the products because the McIDAS-XCD filer needs to be
> >modified to accommodate the header changes (since the products now have
> >headers other than SDUS5*). Jerry and Russ updated the filer on our test
> >machine today, and it's filing the BREF2, BREF248, BREF3, BREF4, BVEL2
> >and PRECIP1 products for MRX. But it's not filing them for SRVEL2,
> >SRVEL3, SRVEL4 and TOPS at the current time. We believe we're not
> >getting those four products because they're issued only when the radar
> >is in precip mode (and it looks like MRX has been in clear-air mode most
> >of the day).
> >
> >It is filing something for VAD, but we can't list it correctly at the
> >current time (an IMGLIST shows zeroes for day and time, and DERIVED in
> >the Satellite/Sensor field).
> >
> >Once we get the filer tested and we believe it's working correctly, we
> >will issue an addendum for -XCD sites. I would hope that would be
> >sometime next week.
> 
> >Tom,
> >Do you know if the NEXRAD servers should handle the VAD products? If so,
> >how will the user display it (assuming it looks like what's shown in
> >http://okfirst.ocs.ou.edu/train/nids/tlxx2314_nwp.gif)?
> 
> No, the NEXRAD servers are for planar displays only.
> 
> I never wrote a decoder for the VAD winds because the product is more
> of a picture than a file of data.  Dan Vietor did tell me a long time
> ago that one could extract some quantative values from the product, but
> at the time Unidata folks were basically only getting 3 NEXRADs, so it
> didn't see like the gain was worth the effort.
> 
> Earlier today I had the an email exchange about this subject with Robert
> Mullenax (of Universal Weather).  In that exchange, I asked Robert
> for a favor:
> 
> "I have an idea :-)  How about you dig up the documentation for the VAD
> products (or strike up a conversation on on of the email lists and see
> if someone already has the documentation/techniques) and see if one
> really can extract wind direction, speed, and height?  If the job is
> not incredibly horrible, I will try and pump out an ldm-mcidas decoder
> to write the VAD winds into an MD file whose schema will match that of
> the 6-minute wind profiler.  This way, all of the data could be written
> to one file and hosted through ADDE.
> 
> (Soap box time) It seems to me that GEMPAK users are always doing a
> bunch of the leg work for new decoders, but the same is never done by
> McIDAS users.  It is time for the McIDAS community to become more
> interactive!"
> 
> Robert agreed noting:
> 
> "I'll do that Tom.  It would be of use for Universal and NSBF.
> I asked SSEC about it as well..haven't heard back from them
> as of yet.  Steve confirmed for me yesterday that GEMPAK
> will not display them either. I wish I was truly a programmer
> and could do more of this kind of stuff..but developing products
> and keeping everything running keeps me occupied.  I will track
> down the docs or ask around.
> 
> I agree about the McIDAS community needing to become more active.
> I was shocked to hear from you how little interest there seems
> to be in radar or much else these days.  Another golden opportunity
> being passed up for learning is the fact that the AMRC stuff
> isn't being used.  Give students the task everyday of issuing
> a forecast for the Willie Field AWS/ for Wille Field/Ice Runway,
> and for the synoptic obs from McMurdo itself.  That would be
> a great exercise..of course it's a bad word to mention operational
> meteorology in academia now..even more so than when I was in school
> 15-20 years ago."
> 
> A final comment:  if/when I get the documentation I need to extract
> values out of the VAD products, I will create a decoder for my
> ldm-mcidas distribution AND contribute the code to the McIDAS Developer's
> Forum.
> 
> >Thanks,
> >Barry Roth
> >McIDAS Help Desk
> >address@hidden
> 
> Tom
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