Week 1 - Sources of Data
The following are recommended methods of viewing weather data at ISU:
- nmap - Powerful menu-driven software allowing access to many different fields and overlay capabilities. Use
"nmap2" to access this package.
- garp - Powerful Menu-driven program allowing access to radar, satellite, profiler, surface, upper air data and
horizontal maps, vertical cross-sections and time-height cross-sections of model data. Fields can be easily overlaid,
with great flexibility.
- nwx - Easy way to view text based weather data.
- ntrans - Easy way to view model data and loop it. Not well supported at ISU due to other packages.
- GEMPAK - Workhorse software behind the above programs - most flexible of all - but more
difficult to use. Includes programs such as SFMAP, SFLIST, GDCNTR, GDPROF and GDPLOT.
Most Recent Additions
- IDV - (Interactive Data Viewer) - Billed as the replacement for GEMPAK. Type 'idv' at command line.
- WES - (Weather Event Simulator) - Software package primarily used for AWIPS and AWIPS2 (Advanced Weather Information
Processing System) training. Handy for individual case studies.
- Gibson Ridge Level 2 Analyst Edition (GRL2AE) - Software package for viewing Level 2 radar data (Windows Only).
Absolutely amazing piece of software and getting better.
- BUFKIT - Software package used for viewing model data. Provides model soundings, cross sections, time-series, etc.
(Windows Only).
More information will be given on several of these packages and how to run them in lecture.
Important Points
- Before running any of the GEMPAK packages, you need to type the following in the terminal window you plan on using:
- csh: source /usr/local/nawips/Gemenviron
- bash: source /usr/local/nawips/Gemenviron.profile
- If you aren't sure what shell you are running, type 'ps' and hit 'Enter'
- Run GPEND by typing gpend in your terminal at the end of each GEMPAK plotting session. This terminates the GEMPLT plotting package and free resources associated with the plotting session for use in other applications.
