GEMPAK Status Report

Steve Chiswell
May 12, 2002

Highlights

  • GEMPAK user training workshop to be held July 29 - 31, 2002
  • Preparing GEMPAK 5.6.G for release (July 2002)
  • Gempak 5.6.f released (April 2002): new feature summary
  • Gempak 5.6.e.1 released (Nov 2001): new feature summary
  • Online user registration/download available through Unidata portal site.
  • NEXRAD composites being created using GDRADR and inserted into FNEXRAD datastream as GRIB products.
  • 1km NEXRAD composite GINI images are being created for the data stream.

    Current Status

    GEMPAK Training Workshops

    The GEMPAK training workshop will be held July 29-31, 2002 in the UCAR corporate training facilities in the Pearl St. complex. This facility can accomodate a greater number of attendees than is possible in the Unidata conference room. A total of 28 registrations were received (24 showed up) for the 2001 GEMPAK workshop. The GEMPAK workshop will cover the latest release (GEMPAK 5.6.G). Online registration is currently in progress.

    Online user registration/download now available

    Users can now register online to become a licensed Unidata site and download GEMPAK. This process eliminates the paper license process and the need to distribute FTP passwords. Each user creates their own login and password. The user registration is part of the Unidata portal development. There have been 111 different sites download GEMPAK since September.

    GEMPAK 5.6.E.1 & GEMPAK5.6.F Releases

    The Unidata release of GEMPAK 5.6.E.1 was announced on November 9, 2001. GEMPAK 5.6.F will be released in Feb 2002 (pending at time of status report). NCEP and UPC developments continue.

    Online and hardcopy documentation was updated for the 5.6.D.1 release.

    NEXRAD composites are being created and inserted into FNEXRAD datastream

    National and Regional radar composites are being created using GDRADR and inserted into the FNEXRAD data stream as GRIB products. The regional composite is designed to be relocatable floater as weather conditions warrant. GRIB products are used so that the products are independent of the display package. The grid products are most flexible for use in computations with other data fields such as RUC temperature grids as shown in the preciptation type mosaic. The mosiac product is approximately 80 Kbytes in GRIB format.

    A high resolution 1km mosaic is also being created as a 4800x3000 point image. Our plans are to distribute this product as a GINI image which can be easily subsetted by an ADDE server. Uncompressed, the GINI image is 14.4Mbytes. The image can be compressed to about 800 Kbytes for transmission.

    Previous developments

    See September 2001 status report for past information.

  • Gempak 5.6.d.1 Released: new feature summary
  • Gempak 5.6.c.1 Released: new feature summary
  • GEMPAK 5.6.A Released: feature summary
  • Gempak 5.6 Released: feature summary
  • Redbook graphics as an alternative to DIFAX
  • Display of CIMSS derived satellite products (Patch 17 to GEMPAK 5.4)
  • New sfcntr surface data contouring program- eliminates the need to perform objective analysis on data first.
  • Radar composites, RCM display
  • Garp 2.1 released
  • GEMPAK and Y2K
  • ACARS data for use in GEMPAK
  • NSHARP interactive SKEW-T program ported to UPC platforms
  • NOAAport transition and GEMPAK
  • GEMPAK source distribution for PC/OS
  • SHEF decoder available
  • DCGRIB updated for additional NCEP grids (CONDUIT data project)

    Web pages and documentation for GEMPAK 5.6 have been updated.

    Ongoing Additions

    COMET case studies available via CODIAC

    COMET case studies are compatible with the GEMPAK/NAWIPS environment, and are being made available via the CODIAC system.

    GEMPAK workshop and tutorial online

    All the handouts/displays for the GEMPAK workshop are been made available through the GEMPAK web page tutorial. Included in the presentation are numerous sample exercises and output samples. This format of presentation allows workshop participants to be able to review or utilize any of the material at their home institution. The tutorial is updated as new features dictate.

    The GEMPAK tutorial can be found at: http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/packages/gempak/tutorial