20011127: NEXRAD VAD profiles

>From: "Alliss, Randall J." <address@hidden>
>Organization: TASC
>Keywords: 200111271243.fARChBN11682 McIDAS-X NEXRAD VAD

Randy,

>first I hope this email finds you well. I heard from RussD you had a mishap
>with a saw.

Yea, I almost cut the tip of my left index finger off.  Luckily, it
is healing and I should regain full use of it, but it will take time.

>As you know the NWS is planning to release new radar products today.

Yes, unless they postpone the release again.

>UW has
>deoders for everything but the VAD profiles. Russ mentioned you might be
>working on this.

I have had talks with a couple of people about the VAD winds.  I want
to look into these as soon as I can free up some time.

>Is this so and/or do you have any plans to support the vad
>profiles.

I have no stated goal, but I do want to.

>Why did SSEC leave this product out?

SSEC adopted what I had, so the question is why did I leave these out.
The reason is that the VAD products are more of a picture than a data
product.  I was told by Dan Vietor (developer of WXP) that one can
extract some quantative information out of the products (like wind
directions to ever 15 degrees or so, etc., so it may be worthwhile to
work on a decoder.  The decoder I have in mind would extract the
information and write it out into an MD file using the schema I
developed for the FSL wind profiler data.  The more I think about this
project, them more interested I become since it would be very useful to
plot vertical cross sections of winds across the country.  I will let
you know if/when I get a decoder working.

Tom