List of freely available data that McV can display

[mhiley]

Hi all,
There is a ton of great data out there available to the public if you know where to look. Here is a list of just about everything I know about and basic instructions for how to get the data files displayed in McV. Please add to the list if you know of more!


NEXRAD radar
Display the Level 2 files with the "Radar -> Level II -> Local" chooser (if you put the radar files in their own directory named with the 4-letter site ID (e.g., KMKX), the station will be automatically selected)
Archive goes back to 1991, both Level 2 and 3 data available
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/nexradinv/


MODIS brightness temperatures / reflectances
Display either with the "Satellite -> HYDRA" chooser or by creating a local ADDE entry ("Tools -> Manage ADDE Datasets") and using the "Satellite -> Imagery" chooser
Click the quicklook image corresponding to the granule you want, scroll to the bottom, and click the HDF file starting with "MOD021KM" (Terra) or "MYD021KM" (Aqua)
http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/realtime
also, there is a different search interface and direct FTP access here:
http://ladsweb.nascom.nasa.gov/data/


AIRS hyperspectral brightness temperatures
Display with the "Satellite -> HYDRA" chooser (and make sure to do a "MultiSpectral Display" instead of a plain "Image Display")
Enter a time span, click "Search GES-DISC". One of the datasets you get should be called something like "AIRS/Aqua Level 1B Infrared (IR) geolocated and calibrated radiances (AIRIBRAD)". Click "View Files" underneath this dataset. Now you can narrow down to the exact granule you want (click the little cactus icon for a quicklook) and download it.
http://mirador.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/mirador/homepageAlt.pl?keyword=AIRIBRAD


AMSR-E microwave brightness temperatures
Display by creating a local ADDE entry ("Tools -> Manage ADDE Datasets") and using the "Satellite -> Imagery" chooser
You'll need to create an account for this one (click "User Registration") but as far as I can tell it is free to anyone. Once logged in, click "Satellites or Sensors". Now check the box next to "Aqua/AMSR-E->Level1->Brightness Temperature(L1B)", and pick your time span. Scroll to the bottom and click "Search". Add the desired granules to your cart, then click "Cart & Order" at the top. (Note, the AMSR-E antenna on Aqua stopped spinning in October 2011)
https://gcom-w1.jaxa.jp


CloudSat 94GHz spaceborne cloud radar
Display with the "General -> Files/Directories" chooser with Data Type "HYDRA Data Source". You'll want to do a "ProfileAlongTrack Display" and change both stride settings to 1. (This may only work in the nightly!). You'll need to rotate the display (right click) to actually see the radar profile.
You'll need to create a user account for this one. Once logged in, click the "Order Data" link. For radar reflectivities, you'll want the "2B-GEOPROF" product.
http://www.cloudsat.cira.colostate.edu


NCEP/NWS model grid FTP servers
Display with the "Gridded Data -> Local" chooser
You can get most basic model grids through the "Gridded Data -> Remote" chooser, but there are a couple products not available through motherlode. Also, if you look at lots of model data you might be interested in having the data locally. These links give a guide to the cryptic filenames on the NCEP/NWS FTP servers so you can find what you are looking for.
http://www.nco.ncep.noaa.gov/pmb/products/
I especially like the high resolution (about 5km) WRF runs, great for giving McV a workout:
http://www.nco.ncep.noaa.gov/pmb/products/hiresw/

[cycoshashank]

Thanks 4 dis Info.

[cwjjets]

SSEC's peate server offers public data including 4 of 5 instruments from the Suomi NPP suite (ATMS, CrIS, OMPS, and VIIRS), MODIS (both Aqua and Terra), AVHRR (NOAA-5 through -19), IASI (on board both METOP-A and METOP-B), CALIPSO, and CLOUDSAT. My experience lies in downloading VIIRS data so if anyone has anything to add about the peate server, please elaborate.

ftp://peate.ssec.wisc.edu/allData/ingest/

* Note, Suomi VIIRS data have separate geolocation files and band data files that both need to be downloaded/ingested with the same time stamp and located in the same file directory in order for McV to recognize files to manipulate.
* For more info on VIIRS file naming convention, see http://rammb.cira.colostate.edu/project ... y_Data.pdf
* For really messy algorithm documents on Suomi NPP instruments, see http://npp.gsfc.nasa.gov/documents.html

[cwjjets]

Just wanted to give an update to my previous reply as SSEC's PEATE server is no longer up and running.
I have found another ftp server from SSEC that provides (very timely) Suomi NPP and MODIS Aqua/Terra data:

ftp://ftp.ssec.wisc.edu/pub/eosdb/

If you want to keep data files in your own directories, I've been able to download data by right clicking data files and 'save link as'.
This only keeps data for the previous week at current time.
Stores data per granule, which I find nice.

Also, NOAA's CLASS now offers ftp for Suomi NPP (with EDRs)

ftp://ftp-npp.class.ngdc.noaa.gov/

Not too much experience with this but it does compress .h5 granules together into .tar files around 2 GB.

[joleenf]

Hi,

http://sips.ssec.wisc.edu/#/

Is the replacement to the peate archive.

Joleen

[tim_v]

Are there any sources for GOES-16/GOES-R?

[barryr]

Hi tim_v,

We do not know of any ADDE servers that are offering free GOES-16 data yet.

We checked with NOAA's ESPC (Environmental Satellite Processing Center) group, and they said that ESPC is "not going to be distributing GOES-16 data in McIDAS ADDE format to any external entities" and to contact nesdis.data.access@noaa.gov if there are any questions.

SSEC Satellite Data Services does have ADDE servers offering GOES-16 ABI data, but it is limited to users who pay for the data (and there may be additional restrictions). Users granted access to those servers are given accounting information that allows them to access the data in McIDAS. If you are interested in pursuing this option you can contact them at dc@ssec.wisc.edu.

If we become aware of ADDE servers offering free access to GOES-16 data in the future we will add them to our list of default servers and datasets in McV. It's possible that existing servers in the list, like adde.ucar.edu and adde.ssec.wisc.edu, will add GOES-16 data at some point. (See the Data Formats and Sources page in the McV Guide for info about those and other datasets and supported formats.)

You can view GOES-16 data on RealEarth (https://re.ssec.wisc.edu/s/OoVjY) and also in McV. Here are some notes from a coworker who views RealEarth's GOES-16 data in McV:

For now, to view GOES-16 data in McV, you are limited to using the RealEarth catalog. Here are some quick steps to do that:

1. From the General>Catalogs chooser of the Data Explorer, enter the following catalog: http://re.ssec.wisc.edu/thredds/catalog.xml

2. Expand GOES-16 preliminary non-operational to see a listing of datasets available. They are broken up by domain and band, with 'FD' meaning Full Disk, 'M1' meaning the mesoscale 1, 'M2' meaning mesoscale 2, and 'US' meaning CONUS. For example, choose FD14, one timestep, and click Add Source.

This will display the data right away using the WMS Control, which is different than ADDE servers in that:

• You can't select a calibration to display.
• You don't have the ability to specify things like the geographical domain and any data sampling before creating the display.
• The Layer Controls are different.

3. The full disk will display right away. At this point, things work similar to RealEarth in that as you zoom in on the display, the data will be re-sampled to display itself at a higher resolution. You can make the resolution the highest quality it can be by changing the Resolution dropdown in the Layer Controls to Very High.

There are a couple of limitations working with the GOES-16 from the RealEarth catalog:

• You can't display a loop of this data using the Time Animation Widget.
• You can't probe the data with it being a WMS layer (note that probing of this data doesn't currently work in RealEarth, either).

Barry

[joleenf]

There is also the capability to access NEXRAD data on amazon web services using a THREDDS server

In McIDAS-V:

Access the catalog and load the data
In the Data Sources tab select General—>Catalogs
Use the Catalog link: http://thredds-aws.unidata.ucar.edu/thredds/catalog.xml
Click "Select File…”
For “Data Sources Type” field select “Radar files (NEXRAD/DORADE/UF)”
Navigate through the drop down menus to
Select Year
Select Month
Select Day
Select Radar Site
Select Files (user may select multiple, Shift + left click. user may select just one file left click )
Click Add Source

Joleen