[gradsusr] Plotting a NEXRAD netCDF file

Fri Sep 20 17:32:15 EDT 2013

It was level2 and I tried setting the Grid Cell Size in NOAA's WCT to a
finer resolution than the default value. That did the trick!!

Sytske

Sytske (seets-kah) Kimball
Professor of Meteorology
Director, South Alabama Mesonet
Dept. of Earth Sciences
University of South Alabama
Mobile, AL
phone (251) 460-7031
fax       (251) 460-7886
email   skimball at southalabama.edu <skimball at usouthal.edu>
web:   http://chiliweb.southalabama.edu/

On Fri, Sep 20, 2013 at 3:39 PM, Jeff Duda <jeffduda319 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Specifically which product did you convert?  Was it level 2 or level 3
> data?
>
> Jeff Duda
>
>
> On Fri, Sep 20, 2013 at 3:34 PM, Sytske Kimball <skimball at southalabama.edu
> > wrote:
>
>> Jennifer,
>>
>> I agree. Not sure how that happened. I used NOAA's Weather and Climate
>> Toolkit to convert the radar data to netCDF so maybe something went amiss
>> in that process.
>>
>> Thanks for your help,
>> Sytske
>>
>>
>> Sytske (seets-kah) Kimball
>> Professor of Meteorology
>> Director, South Alabama Mesonet
>> Dept. of Earth Sciences
>> University of South Alabama
>> Mobile, AL
>> phone (251) 460-7031
>> fax       (251) 460-7886
>> email   skimball at southalabama.edu <skimball at usouthal.edu>
>> web:   http://chiliweb.southalabama.edu/
>>
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Sep 20, 2013 at 3:25 PM, Jennifer Adams <jma at cola.iges.org>wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> On Sep 20, 2013, at 4:17 PM, Sytske Kimball wrote:
>>>
>>> Jennifer,
>>>
>>> Thanks for your response. Replies are added in below.
>>>
>>>
>>> On Fri, Sep 20, 2013 at 3:03 PM, Jennifer Adams <jma at cola.iges.org>wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Sep 20, 2013, at 3:47 PM, Andrew Friedman wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Hi Sytske,
>>>>
>>>> In your script you have 2 plot settings right after each other:
>>>>
>>>> 'set gxout grfill'
>>>> 'set gxout shaded'
>>>>
>>>> I believe the second one overrides the first. Try commenting it out to
>>>> see what the grfill plot looks like.
>>>>
>>>> That's right -- grfill will give a better view of actual grid box size.
>>>> What does 'q ctlinfo' give you after you invoke sdfopen?
>>>>
>>>
>>> The plot with 'set gxout shaded' commented out, is attached - not very
>>> nice looking...….
>>>
>>> True, but that pixelated nature of the data explains why your shaded
>>> plot looked even worse.
>>>
>>>  'q ctlinfo' came back with the following:
>>>
>>> dset KMOB_V03_20091110_035730.nc
>>> title Nexrad 2 radar dataset  03:57:30 UTC  11/10/2009
>>> undef -999
>>> dtype netcdf
>>> xdef 800 linear -127.06 0.0776505
>>> ydef 490 linear 20.4756 0.0776505
>>>
>>> Which is about an 8km grid. I'm guessing the radar data is much higher
>>> resolution than that.
>>> --Jennifer
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> zdef 1 linear 0 1
>>> tdef 1 linear 03:57Z10NOV2009 1mn
>>> vars 1
>>> Reflectivity=>reflectivity  0  t,y,x  Nexrad 2 radar dataset
>>> endvars
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Also, you could try changing the shaded plot setting to the
>>>> higher-resoluttion algorithm:
>>>> 'set gxout shade2b'
>>>>
>>>> shade2b is not higher resolution -- it has more smaller polygons and
>>>> takes longer to render. shade2 and shade2b should look exactly the same.
>>>>
>>>
>>> 'set gxout shaded' and 'set gxout shade2' look the same.
>>>
>>> Sytske
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>
>>>>  --Jennifer
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Andrew
>>>>
>>>> On Sep 20, 2013, at 12:23 PM, Sytske Kimball <skimball at southalabama.edu>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Dear GrADS users,
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> I (finally) managed to plot a NEXRAD radar reflectivity fil, in netCDF
>>>> format, using GrADS. The plot is attached (IdaRadar-test.png) as is the
>>>> original radar image for the same area, displayed using GRLevelII
>>>> (RadarLevel2.png). I can't figure out why the resolution on the GrADS image
>>>> is so much worse than on the original image. The script is also attached.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Any help would be much appreciated.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Thank you in advance,
>>>>
>>>> Sytske
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Sytske (seets-kah) Kimball
>>>>
>>>> Professor of Meteorology
>>>>
>>>>  Director, South Alabama Mesonet
>>>>
>>>> Dept. of Earth Sciences
>>>>
>>>> University of South Alabama
>>>>
>>>> Mobile, AL
>>>>
>>>> phone (251) 460-7031
>>>>
>>>> fax       (251) 460-7886
>>>>
>>>> email   skimball at southalabama.edu
>>>>
>>>> web:   http://chiliweb.southalabama.edu/
>>>>
>>>> <RadarLevel2.png><IdaRadar-test.png><StationPlot+radar2.gs
>>>> >_______________________________________________
>>>>
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>>>>
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>>>>
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>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>>
>>>>
>>>>  --
>>>> Jennifer M. Adams
>>>> Center for Ocean-Land-Atmosphere Studies (COLA)
>>>> 111 Research Hall, Mail Stop 2B3
>>>> George Mason University
>>>> 4400 University Drive
>>>> Fairfax, VA 22030
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
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>>>>
>>> <IdaRadar-test2.png>_______________________________________________
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>>>
>>>
>>>  --
>>> Jennifer M. Adams
>>> Center for Ocean-Land-Atmosphere Studies (COLA)
>>> 111 Research Hall, Mail Stop 2B3
>>> George Mason University
>>> 4400 University Drive
>>> Fairfax, VA 22030
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
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>>>
>>
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>
>
> --
> Jeff Duda
> Graduate research assistant
> University of Oklahoma School of Meteorology
> Center for Analysis and Prediction of Storms
>
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