GEMPAK

Status Report: September 2012

Michael James

Strategic Focus Areas

GEMPAK activities support Unidata's strategic goals in the following ways:

  1. Enable widespread, efficient access to geoscience data
    GEMPAK remains widely used througout University atmospheric science departments, and couples with the LDM, allows for the ingest, decoding, conversion and display of a number of different data types.
  2. Develop and provide open-source tools for effective use of geoscience data
    GEMPAK has always been, and will remain, open-source, though Unidata's distribution agreement with NCEP requires that users register with the UPC before downloading and using GEMPAK.
  3. Provide cyberinfrastructure leadership in data discovery, access, and use
  4. Build, support, and advocate for the diverse geoscience community
    Though NAWIPS/GEMPAK is being sunset (and will evolve into an AIWPS II add-on application), use in the atmospheric science community remains high, and Unidata remains committed to updating and supporting the package indefinitely / until further notice. Additionally, the UPC has planned to shift GEMPAK to a community-supported package, administered through a Github repository.

Activities Since the Last Status Report

New Releases

  • 6.6.0 June 2012
  • 6.7.0 September 2012
  • New grib tables, migration support for AWIPS2, updated maps, high-res OSCAT data support, GDDIAG bug fix, etc.

GitHub Workshop

  • UberConf Java Conference, June 2012
  • Planning GEMPAK move to github and community support in preparation for NAWIPS to AWIPS2 migration.

Planned Activities

Ongoing Activities

  • Move NAWIPS/GEMPAK to community-supported development on Github.com

New Activities

  • GEMPAK Training Workshop with introduction to AWIPS II (November 2012)