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IDV developer Yuan Ho conducts training workshop segment |
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Regional Workshop at Plymouth State |
Brendon Hoch, JGMI Technology Manager and Workshop Organizer
Editor's Note: the article was submitted in fulfillment of an Equipment Award requirement to provide an article detailing use of funds awarded.
The Judd Gregg Meteorology Institute at
Plymouth
State
University
recently hosted a successful Unidata Regional Workshop. From May 18 to the 20th over 25 participants
representing 13 different educational institutions from 8 states across the
U.S.
met at the
Boyd
Science
Center.
Unidata software engineers Don Murray, Jeff McWhirter,
and Yuan Ho provided hands on instruction with the Integrated Data Viewer
(IDV), a visualization tool that provides the ability to perform three
dimensional analyses of meteorological and other environmental data sets. Guest speakers from the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Lyndon State College, and the U.S.
Geological Survey at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute provided presentations
on using the IDV in teaching and research.
Feedback from the workshop was positive. “This software should take care of my
requirements for visualizing radar data,” said Sam Miller, a faculty member at
Plymouth
State
When asked whether the workshop met
expectations, one participant wrote, “Yes, I learned a lot and became a much
more comfortable IDV user.”
Computers used during the workshop were obtained with
funding from a recent Unidata Equipment Award combined with cost matching funds
provided by
Plymouth
State. We
purchased 25 Dell Optiplex 755
workstations configured with 2.33 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo Processors and 4 GB of
memory. These systems will provide the next generation
of visualization technology for our students. They are already being used in a variety of
meteorology courses throughout our undergraduate and graduate programs.
The new systems made an impact on
Plymouth
State
well before the workshop. “Our graduate students in Applied Meteorology
have utilized the workstations for thesis based research on topics such as air
quality monitoring and evaluation of road weather information systems in
New
Hampshire,"
said James Koermer, Director of the Judd
Gregg Meteorology Institute and Graduate Program Coordinator.He added, “The research performed with the
new equipment also helps us satisfy our mission requirements as a regional
public university by serving the people of the granite state.”
Undergraduate students have benefited from the new technology
as well by using it to perform research on such diverse topics as forecasting
winds in the
Gulf
of
Maine
to seasonal frequency of fronts in the
Great Lakes.
Research
using the new systems has been presented at venues such as the 88th Annual Meeting of the American Meteorological Society in
New
Orleans
which took place in January, and the 33rd Northeastern Storm Conference in
Springfield
MA
in March. |
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CONDUIT Data Streams: what are your thoughts? |
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Bill Gallus, Iowa State University
The Cooperative Opportunity
for NCEP Data Using IDD Technology (CONDUIT) provides high resolution, real-time, operational model data
originating at NCEP to a large number of users throughout the research and academic
communities. Evidence of its widespread use can be seen in the latest Real-time
Statistics Feed Type break down: approximately 72 domains and 125 sites are receiving
CONDUIT data through Unidata's Internet Data Distribution protocol.
CONDUIT originated as a component of the U.S. Weather Research Program
(USWRP) whose Scientific Steering Committee and Interagency Working Group
recommended that the NCEP operational model output be included in Unidata's
Internet Data Distribution (IDD) to ensure real-time distribution of NCEP model
data to the research community. Planning and testing began in 1998, with a T-1 link
via NASA Goddard to three university sites. It didn’t take long before the
volume of data grew beyond the T1, leading to an evolutionary change of NGI/Internet2
and Abilene. This development,
along with upgraded technologies at Unidata and NCEP created the infrastructure
needed to ensure reliable delivery of high resolution data to users throughout the
community.
At present, CONDUIT is a cooperative project with National Weather Service
(NWS), National Center for Environmental Prediction (NCEP), and the Unidata
Program Center that makes model data (not currently available on NOAAPort)
available from the NCEP and NWS FTP
servers to universities and US Weather Research Program communities using
Unidata’s Internet Data Distribution (IDD) technologies.
We'd like your input on the composition of the CONDUIT datastream. Although there are a
lot of data there, we'd like to know if there are additional model data you’d
like to see included, or if we can remove some of the data currently being
distributed -- that would be very useful information for us.
We have created a CONDUIT forum http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/forums/index.jspa that you may access, and additional information can be found at: http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/data/conduit/
Together with my fellow committee members, Chris Herbster, ERAU, Gary
Lackmann, NCSU, and Linda Miller, Unidata, I request
that you take a few minutes to respond these questions and that you
send your responses to conduitinfo@unidata.ucar.edu.
Thank you.
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TUG: TIGGE Users Group |
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Doug Schuster and Steve Worley, NCAR CISL
Editor's Note: the Unidata CommunitE-letter is happy to respond to a request that originated at the last TIGGE WG meeting to promote the TIGGE forum. Unidata is pleased to support the TUG .
The TIGGE User's Group (TUG) forum's importance is based on its being open to all in the international community that have interests in TIGGE data or related THORPEX research. The TUG functions both as community-wide email service and a web interface for sharing questions, solutions, and ideas. The services are provided complimentary by Unidata, a UOP Program and frequent collaborator with NCAR.
The TUG forum has been created as an open platform for TIGGE data users to exchange information and ideas to one another. Messages informing users of newly released features available on the NCAR TIGGE web portal (http://tigge.ucar.edu) will also be presented through this forum.
 The forum provides multiple options for users to ask questions and exchange ideas amongst one another. Two of them are:
- -Direct e-mail:
- TUG members can start topic discussions by sending an email to tiggeusers@ucar.edu. All members will receive the email and have the opportunity to respond.
- -Web interface:
Additionally, members can post questions, add to a topic discussion, or start new topic discussions directly through the web interface. Any messages posted directly to the web interface are emailed out to the entire TUG community as well, allowing members to respond via email.
To sign up to the TIGGE User's Group, go to the following: http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/mailing_lists/
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GEMPAK/N-AWIPS Transition Input |
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We are taking this opportunity to once again request your input on this critical topic. We've provided information at this location, and we have created a forum to provide you with a venue for discussing this change. You are also welcome to provide your input to the following e-mail address: nawipsmigration@unidata.ucar.edu as well.
Step number one in this transition will occur in August 2008 with a moratorium on N-AWIPS development at NCEP. Unidata will continue to support GEMPAK/N-AWIPS for as long as that is feasible.
Our request to you, GEMPAK community, is to help us by providing insight into how this will affect your work, what capabilities we can incorporate into other software, and how you would prioritize those capabilities. We stand ready to facilitate the transition from N-AWIPS to AWIPS-II, but we need your help.
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Please send comments to support-eletter@unidata.ucar.edu
The CommuniteE-letter is produced by editor, Jo Hansen, and production manager, Tina Campbell |
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