For many in the Unidata community — including Unidata Program Center staff — the annual American Meteorological Society meeting is a whirlwind event that leaves attendees sorting through new ideas for quite some time after the conference itself has ended. We were gratified that so many community members stopped by Unidata's booth in the exhibit hall to catch up on the latest developments or just talk. But rather than try to touch on everything that happened, here we present some recollections of the meeting from UPC staff members who attended, in no particular order.
11th Student Conference
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The 11th AMS Student Conference had 625 registered attendees — an all-time record. The large attendance is partly indicative of the growth and vibrancy of the field as well as the state of the economy as more students are looking for jobs. Several of the students stopped by the Unidata table to inquire about the program and the types of skills we look for in our applicants.
"Comparing it to last year, there seemed to be more students coming up to the table who were already aware of some of our products and just wanted to know a little more. We had a few that were surprised to find out all of our software is free to download," said UPC Staffer Tina Campbell.
Lots of Attention for AWIPS II
AWIPS II is the National Weather Service's next generation weather forecasting, display and analysis package. While AWIPS II is still in development, many conference sessions were devoted to its status, design, and underlying software architecture.
We had the current version of AWIPS II running in the Unidata booth in the AMS exhibition hall, where we were fortunate to be joined by David Plummer, Scott Jacobs, and Michelle Mainelli from the NCEP AWIPS II project team. Our NCEP colleagues joined the UPC's Michael James in demonstrating the AWIPS II functionality over the course of the conference. James says he was encouraged by the "wide-spread interest in, and enthusiastic response to, AWIPS II National Centers Perspective."
Prior to to the formal opening of the exhibit hall, Drs. Jack Hayes and Louis Uccellini, along with new UCAR president Dr. Thomas Bogdan, all visited the Unidata booth for AWIPS II demos. They were happy to see the demo and stressed the importance of the NOAA partnership with Unidata and the university community. It was both encouraging and gratifying to hear their comments.
IDV Wows the Crowds
Unidata's own Integrated Data Viewer (IDV) was also on display, both at the Student Conference and in Unidata's booth. Visitors new to the IDV were impressed with its 3D capabilities, while current users stopped by to learn about recently-added features such as support for ensemble grids, Hovmoller displays, and enhanced control of contour labelling.
As Unidata Program Center director Mohan Ramamurthy notes, "It wouldn't be the AMS Annual Meeting without some weather excitement. I was woken up on Thursday morning by the iPhone Weather Radio app, broadcasting the Flash Flood weather alert, for the New Orleans area. It was soon followed by a tornado warning for a nearby parish. Waking up to thunder and lightning was pretty cool!" The interactive IDV displays of the weather rolling through New Orleans also brought many people to the Unidata booth.
Python Makes a Splash
There was quite a bit of interest in using the Python programming language for scientific data analysis, including workshops, seminars, and conference presentations. UPC developer Russ Rew says "I attended a two-day AMS short course on "Using Python in Climate and Meteorology: Advanced Methods". It was enjoyable and instructive, converting me into understanding "the Pythonic way" of doing things. Last weekend, I solved the NPR Sunday morning puzzler with a 16-line Python program that would have required a lot more code in other programming languages. Maybe Will Shortz will be calling this week ..."
UPC developer Sean Arms reports on a presentation highlighting an open source python implementation of the Sounding and Hodograph Analysis and Research Program (SHARP). As lead developer Patrick Marsh says:
...SHARPpy does more than generate images. It's a functioning software package, including dynamic readout.
For more, see the project page on Github and Patrick Marsh's blog.
As Unidata moves towards an open source development paradigm, you can expect to see more open source community highlights, such as SHARPpy, on our blog. Fork, improve, and submit a pull request!
Professor Gary Lackmann's Book Signing
Kudos to Dr. Gary Lackmann, professor of atmospheric sciences in the Department of Marine, Earth, and Atmospheric Sciences at North Carolina State University — and a member of Unidata's Policy Committee. There was a long line of students and attendees waiting to get their books autographed at the signing event for his new book "Midlatitude Synoptic Meteorology: Dynamics, Analysis, and Forecasting."
Unidata and Mobile Weather Apps
UPC developer Julien Chastang reports on one of his hallway conversations:
"My most interesting conversation was with Mike Piatek-Jimenez from Gaucho Software. He makes Seasonality, a weather app for iPad," says Chastang. "He graduated with a computer science degree, but has been taking meteorology classes in Michigan for the last few years. His weather app is coming along nicely and provides more than just basic functionality. In particular, there are nifty time series of various weather forecasts fields as well as radar and satellite data overlaid on maps. I was impressed with his knowledge of meteorology and his desire to see Seasonality cater to more of an expert meteorological audience. For example, he plans to develop SkewTs for his app."
How does Unidata fit in? A big problem Mike is having *finding the data*. This could be an avenue for us in the future where we would help developers like Mike find and access the data. Enabling these developers, especially in academic settings, could be an interesting area to pursue.
A Bit of Relaxation, Too
We'd paint an incomplete picture of the meeting as a whole if we stuck only to the excellent scientific and technical events, because there were plenty of opportunities to get together in more informal settings. As always, many universities held receptions that provided a chance to talk and catch up with friends and colleagues. In particular, several UPC staff attended the University of Albany, Millersville University, and University of Oklahoma receptions, leaving all of us with a sense of nostalgia over how Unidata and its community has matured and continues to grow.
Now You See Me
Finally, several of us witnessed shooting or prep work for the filming of "Now you see me," starring Isla Fisher, Woody Harrelson, Morgan Freeman, and many others, at the famous Cafe Du Monde in the French Quarter. Film crews were seen all over town — it was quite a production!
