HR: 1340h
AN: H43E-0542    [Abstracts]
TI: Towards Better Utilization of NEXRAD Data in Hydrology
AU: * Krajewski, W
EM: witold-krajewski@uiowa.edu
AF: University of Iowa, IIHR-Hydroscience & Engineering, Iowa City, IA 52242 United States
AU: Kruger, A
EM: anton-kruger@uiowa.edu
AF: University of Iowa, IIHR-Hydroscience & Engineering, Iowa City, IA 52242 United States
AU: Lawrence, R
EM: ramon-lawrence@uiowa.edu
AF: University of Iowa, IIHR-Hydroscience & Engineering, Iowa City, IA 52242 United States
AU: Smith, J A
EM: jsmith@princeton.edu
AF: Princeton University, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Princeton, NJ 08544 United States
AU: Bradley, A
EM: allen-bradley@uiowa.edu
AF: University of Iowa, IIHR-Hydroscience & Engineering, Iowa City, IA 52242 United States
AU: Steiner, M
EM: msteiner@princeton.edu
AF: Princeton University, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Princeton, NJ 08544 United States
AU: Baeck, M
EM: mlbaeck@princeton.edu
AF: Princeton University, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Princeton, NJ 08544 United States
AU: Ramamurthy, M
EM: mohan@unidata.ucar.edu
AF: UCAR, Unidata Program Center PO Box 3000, Boulder, CO 80307 United States
AU: Weber, J
EM: jweber@ucar.edu
AF: UCAR, Unidata Program Center PO Box 3000, Boulder, CO 80307 United States
AU: DelGreco, S
EM: stephen.a.delgreco@noaa.gov
AF: National Climatic Data Center, NOAA/NESDIS/NCDC 151 Patton Avenue, Asheville, NC 28801 United States
AU: Murthy, F
EM: mvenkate@cs.uiowa.edu
AF: University of Iowa, IIHR-Hydroscience & Engineering, Iowa City, IA 52242 United States
AU: Dhutia, D
EM: devansh-dhutia@uiowa.edu
AF: University of Iowa, IIHR-Hydroscience & Engineering, Iowa City, IA 52242 United States
AB: In recent years, the access to data from the national network of NEXRAD weather radars has increased considerably. This is the result of efforts such as the collaborative radar acquisition field test (CRAFT), changes in policy by the National Weather Service, and investments and changes in procedure by the National Climatic Data Center. With a modest investment in computer hardware and the open source local data manger (LDM) software from UCAR's Unidata Program Center, an individual researcher can now receive the various NEXRAD Level III gridded rainfall products in real-time from most NEXRAD radars. More significantly, researchers also can also obtain the unprocessed Level II data from these radars, which are needed for the generation of high quality rainfall products for use by professional in research, engineering, and education. Still, significant obstacles remain in order to unlock the full potential of the data. Among these are data management issues-storing multi-terrabyte data sets, metadata extraction and cataloging, indexing the data and products, and data compression. Before rainfall estimation algorithms are applied, data must be carefully quality controlled to remove false echoes. Another set of hurdles include coordinate conversion and georeferencing, conversion to a convenient data format(s), and integration with GIS. The authors are developing a basin-centered framework for addressing all these issues in a comprehensive manner tailored specifically for use of NEXRAD data in hydrology and hydrometeorology. An important aspect of this framework is the concept of the flow of NEXRAD data through a number of data-processing steps. Well-chosen and documented defaults are provided for this scientific workflow, but users can also tailor the flow according to their needs. Another important aspect of the framework is the management of metadata or descriptive data in a searchable database. This will allow users to search for interesting subsets over extended periods and geographic region(s). The searchable metadata database and the datasets are accessible through flexible interfaces that include common web browsers, a downloadable Java client, and web services for programmatic access from compiled programs and scripts.
DE: 0525 Data management
DE: 0530 Data presentation and visualization
DE: 1853 Precipitation-radar
SC: Hydrology [H]
MN: Fall Meeting 2005