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The NOAA Weather and Climate Toolkit

Steve Ansari, Stephen Del Greco, Neal Lott (NOAA / NCDC)

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Overview

• Free, public domain source code• Desktop and command-line application• Simple visualization and data export• Platform independent (Java-based)• Leverages community tools and standards

(NetCDF for Java, Common Data Model, etc…)

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Data• Raw data files on disk or remote location

(URL, THREDDS, OPeNDAP, etc…)

• NetCDF, GRIB, GINI, HDF and more via Unidata Common Data Model (CDM):– Feature types of Grid, Swath, Radial (Time

Series, Point, coming soon)

• Supports:– NEXRAD, GOES, Model Data, and much

more.

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Visualization

• Simple 2-D maps

• Basic overlays included (states, counties, etc…)

• Background images from any OGC WMS– Shaded Relief, Topo Maps, Landsat, ext…

• Save images and animations to Animated GIF, AVI, KMZ (Google Earth)

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Visualization

GOES Infrared Water Vapor with Blue Marble Web Map Service (WMS) background map

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Visualization

Smoothed NEXRAD Reflectivity Data

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Visualization

U.S. Drought Monitor service from NIDIS/NDMC (National Drought Mitigation Center)

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Visualization

Sea Surface Temperature (NetCDF data over OPeNDAP)

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Visualization

• Internal Google Earth Instance:(Currently Windows Only)

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Visualization

Hurricane Andrew: NCDC GridSat Climate Data Record (CDR).

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Visualization

• Math tool (max, min, avg, abs max, sum)(Under ‘More…’ link on ‘Data Selector’ or ‘Grid Properties’)

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Visualization

• Experimental Time Morphing (Under ‘Tools’ menu)

– Interpolation of data between time steps based on storm motion.

– Based on Face Morphing algorithms (javamorph)

– Storm motion data from NEXRAD Level-III products, RUC model or manual entry.

– Many possible future applications.

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Visualization

• Experimental Time Morphing (Under ‘Tools’ menu)

Example Movies:Moore, OK 1999: orig. /

morph

Fairview, AL 2011: orig. / morph

Surry, VA 2011: orig. / morph

Western NC 2012: orig. / morph

Pierce City, MO 2003:

orig. / morph

GOES Satellite IR: orig. / morph

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Community-focused Plugins• IMPACT: Integrated Marine Protected Area

Climate Toolkit – specialized user interface prototype built on top of WCT.

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Data Export• “Bridge” between raw Weather and

Climate data and multiple scientific user communities

• Export Data to:Shapefile, Well-Known Text, Arc/Info ASCII

GRID, Gridded and Raw NetCDF, GeoTIFF and KMZ (Google Earth)

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Applications

GOES Satellite Imagery from Hurricane Rita landfall, exported as ASCII GRID, in ArcGIS

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Applications

GOES Satellite Imagery from Hurricane Rita landfall in Google Earth

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Applications

• 3D Radar Sweeps in Google Earth:– Drapes rendered image on COLLADA model

(Similar to 3D building models)

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Applications• 3D Isosurfaces in Google Earth:

– Output of 3D Polygons to KMZ• Supported for Generic Radial, Level-II NEXRAD and Gridded

x, y, z datasets.

Play Movie

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Applications

Command-line batch processing of data export

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Applications

Public domain / open source API

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Future Work

• Improved Point and Time Series (station data) support.

• Comparison between station data and grid/radial data.

• More COLLADA work? Cross-sections?• Enhance Time Morphing features.• Batch / Command-line KMZ export.• Enhanced integration with the Climate Services

portal (http://www.climate.gov).

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Contact

Thank you! Questions?

WCT Website: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/wct

Contact:Steve.Ansari@noaa.gov

(828) 271-4611

151 Patton Ave.

Asheville, NC 28801

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