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20030210: Using Level II and III Radar Data



>From: mljacobs <address@hidden>
>Organization: U Kansas
>Keywords: 200302102010.h1AKAT612306 NEXRAD Level III

Matt,

>I am a student at the University of Kansas.  I need get get rainfall rates 
>from radar data.  I found level II and Level III data from NCDC but do not 
>know how to view it.  Does Mcidas or Gempak have a program that will decode 
>this data.

Both McIDAS and GEMPAK can use the NEXRAD Level III products directly.
Neither has the capability of using the Level II data yet.

As far as decoding the data, Unidata does not supply a routine that
decodes the data into other formats mainly since our applications can
use the data directly.

>The The files are of the type 700kict20030207.tar.Z  

This compressed tar file most likely contains a day's worth of Level
III products for a single station (ITC, Wichita, KS).  This file can be
uncompressed and tar can be used to extract the data files.  GEMPAK
could be then used to directly look at the files, or they could be
organized into a directory structure that would be usable by either of
the GMEPAK GUIs (GARP or NMAP2).  A McIDAS ADDE dataset could be
created for the unpacked files and the McIDAS IMG* applications used to
interrogate/analyze the images.

>Thanks for your help

Please let us know if you are looking for specifics on how to bring
the images into either of the GEMPAK and McIDAS packages.  I recently
provided a blow-by-blow howto for a site for McIDAS, so that information
is readily available.

>Matt Jacobs  

Tom Yoksas