Radar Data Visualization and Interoperability Tools at NOAAs NCDC

1
Radar Data Visualization and Interoperability
Tools at NOAAs NCDC

• Stephen Del Greco Steve Ansari

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History

• NOAAs National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) has
  developed radar visualization and data exporter
  tools in an open system environment (Weather
  Radar Toolkit - WRT) that support Regional,
  National and Global (GEOSS) products and services
• GEOSS Global Earth Observation System of
  Systems
• GEOSS focuses on easy access to environmental
  data and interoperability across different
  systems allowing participating countries to
  measure the pulse of the planet

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Radar Networks Supported

• Primary radar network data and products archived
  at NCDC
• Weather Surveillance Radar 1988 Doppler (WSR-88D)
• Common Name Next Generation Radar
  (NEXRAD) (S-Band)
• 159 NEXRAD Sites (ConUS, Alaska, Hawaii,
  Puerto Rico, Guam, Korea)
• Other Radar Network data and products available
  
• NOAA Regional ConUS Radar-based Precipitation
  Mosaic (Multi-sensor product)
• Collaborative Adaptive Sensing of the Atmosphere
  (CASA) Radar network (X-band)
• Environment Canada Radar Network (C-band)
• NOAA 3-D Reflectivity and QPE mosaic (product -
  1km resolution)
• Potential future Radar networks data and products
  available
• Department of Transportation - Terminal Doppler
  Weather Radars (C-band)
• Other Global distributed radar networks
• Phase Array Radar Networks

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NCDC Radar Archives

• Entire NEXRAD Period of Record 1991 Present
• Archives hold over 1000 terabytes (1 petabyte)
• Increases at 252 Gigabytes/Day
• Projected increase to 2.6 Terabyte/Day in 2010
• Potential increase 13 Terabyte/day 2020

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Direct Web Access
Direct digital access to radar inventories, data,
and visualization software are available at no
cost via the NCDC radar resources web
page http//www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/radar/radarresour
ces  
NEXRAD Inventory Select Site and Product
http//www.ncdc.noaa.gov/nexradinv/
Web Servicing
Weather Radar Data/Products Data Accessed Via
Web Services Total Volume Accessed Jan 03 Aug
06 184TB Average Volume Accessed Per Year
50.2TB Average Volume Accessed Per Month 4.2TB
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Visualization / Interoperability

• NCDC Radar Tools
• View, analyze and export Radar Data from multiple
  sources and Networks in an Open Geospatial
  Consortium (OGC) and Common Data Model (CDM)
  compliant environment
• NCDC Radar Data Exporter, Bridge to other
  scientific user communities

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Visualization

• NCDC Radar Toolkit Display Features
• Cross-platform, GIS-based viewer
• Integrate personal GIS datasets and Web Services
  with Radar data
• Save images and animations
• Filtering, Smoothing, Mosaic, Composite and Math
  operations

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Visualization

• NCDC Radar Viewer

Custom Data
Web Map Services (WMS)
Custom map backgrounds using client side data
and/or OGC compliant Web Map Services (WMS)
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Visualization

• NCDC RADAR Viewer
• Smoothing
• Filtering

vs.
vs.
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Visualization

• NCDC Radar Viewer
• Animations

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FeaturesLevel-II Reflectivity with TerraServer
Aerial Photo
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FeaturesReflectivity with USGS Shaded Relief
Reference Layers
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FeaturesStage-III Regional Mosaic 1-hour Precip
Estimates
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Features
National (CONUS) 3D radar mosaic grid with a 1-km
horizontal resolution
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Math Operations3 Hour Maximum Reflectivity
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Math Operations24 Hour Maximum Reflectivity
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Math Operations6 Hour Average Reflectivity
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Math OperationsBeam Blockage from 2 Hour Average
Reflectivity
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Applications

• Integrated Data Viewing and Analysis
• Radar, Lightning and Hail Data
• for Toronto A.P. August 2, 2005
• Data exported to SHP file and displayed in
• ESRI GIS software
• View Movie
• Hurricane Katrina in 3D GIS
• Radar (Level-II) Reflectivity data rendered in
  ESRI
• ArcScene. The Java NEXRAD Data Exporter was
• used to export the data to point Shapefiles with
  a
• height attribute. The height is exaggerated in
  ArcScene
• View Movie

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Applications

• GIS Analysis
• Use Storm Total Precipitation NEXRAD product and
  2000 US Census data to determine who was affected
  by heavy rainfall during Hurricane Charley
• Improve Disaster Response

Census tracts areas of gt 4 in. precip 554,246
Families 798,348 Households 908,155 House
Units 2,098,223 People
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Applications

• 3D Multimedia Visualization
• Radar Data for
• Hurricane Charley
• View Movie

VTK multimedia screenshot using ParaView software
displaying data exported using Radar Data
Exporter tool
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Contact

• Steve Ansari GIS Programmer, Data Processing
  Branch, National Climatic Data Center
• -- Steve.Ansari_at_noaa.gov --
• Stephen Del Greco Branch Chief, Data Processing
  Branch, National Climatic Data Center
• -- Stephen.A.Delgreco_at_noaa.gov --