AWIDS - Advanced Weather Interactive Diagnostic System


## !!! DISCLAIMER !!! ##
CODE IS STILL NOT HEAVILY DOCUMENTED

Author: Kelton Halbert
Website: http://tempestchasing.com
Email: keltonhalbert@tempestchasing.com

Special Thanks: Greg Thompson of UCAR for the list of METAR stations and their coordinates. This list can be found at http://weather.rap.ucar.edu/surface/stations.txt

Contributors: Greg Blumberg (The University of Oklahoma - School of Meteorology), Patrick Marsh (The National Severe Storms Laboratory / Hazardous Weather Testbed), Tim Supinie (The University of Oklahoma)

If you would like to skip the how and why the program works and just learn how to run it, skip ahead to #3.

1) About The Program:

AWIDS came out of the desire to compare surface observations (METAR data) to model analyses. The hope was to provide a visual analysis that tampered as little with the data as possible to allow the forecaster to decide what could be an error and what could be an actual weather phenomenon. After that came the idea to compute conserved variables and vector calculus, things normally done with model analyses, and see how they held up with raw observations. With help from Greg Blumberg and Patrick Marsh, I was able to plot several of these advanced diagnostics - hence the name of the program. Now the hope is that these advanced computations are of use to forecasters everywhere.

AWIDS is built in Python; partly due to personal preference, and partly due to the desire to make open source code. This program is built on top of the MATPLOTLIB, Basemap, Numpy, and Scipy libraries.

REQUIRED LIBRARIES:

MATPLOTLIB - http://matplotlib.sourceforge.net/
BASEMAP - http://sourceforge.net/projects/matplotlib/files/matplotlib-toolkits/
SCIPY - http://www.scipy.org/
NUMPY - http://numpy.scipy.org/
CYTHON - http://http://cython.org

2) How The Program Works:

AWIDS works by decoding raw METAR files and loads them into dictionaries through the readmetar.py file. This is then passed into gridmaker.py, which in turn loads the data onto a 40km grid. The blank areas are then interpolated using a barnes analysis. The default radius of influence is 250km, but can be changed in the AWIDS.py script. Gridmaker then returns a tuple of (X, Y, Z, Contour Levels, Colormap, Plot Description) that AWIDS.py uses to make the plots. 


3) How To Run the Program:

Move the AWIDS.py file out of the download folder to a location of your choice.

Run the setup script by changing your directory to where you have AWIDS stored:
	i.e., 'cd /path/to/AWIDS'
	sudo python setup.py build
	sudo python setup.py install
After that, you can DELETE you AWIDS folder. You don't need it anymore.

Open up your terminal and change your directory to where you have AWIDS.py stored, i.e. 'cd ~/Desktop/' 
In your terminal prompt, type :
	chmod +x ./AWIDS.PY

Running is very simple: type in the command './AWIDS.py' without the quotes. This will run with the latest available METAR data and a command prompt will appear. 

At the command prompt, you will see a print of the available options:
	PAREA = 
	PFUNC = 
	SAT = 
	WIND = 
PAREA stands for Plot Area
PFUNC stands for plot function
SAT dictates the satellite data type
WIND is for the type of wind barb to plot

Valid Options for PAREA:
	PAREA = CONUS will plot the continental US data
	PAREA = GOES-E is for satellite data plots
	PAREA = insert_station_id_here (i.e. KBNA ) will center the plot on a particular station
Valid Options for PFUNC:
	The following are valid plot functions and their descriptions:
		TMPF - Temperature (Fahrenheit) 
		TMPC - Temperature (Celsius)
		DWPF - Dewpoint (Fahrenheit)
		DWPC - Dewpoint (Celsius)
		WSPD - Windspeed (Knots)
		PRES - Sea Level Pressure (Millibars)
		THTA - Theta (Kelvin)
		THTE - Theta-E (Kelvin)
		MIXR - Mixing Ratio (1/kg)
		RELH - Relative Humidity (%)
		VORT - Vorticity (1/s * 10^5)
		DIVR - Divergence (1/s * 10^5)
		TPFA - Temperature Advection (Degrees Fahrenheit / 1 hour)
		TPCA - Temperature Advection (Degrees Celsius / 1 hour)
		MXRA - Mixing Ratio Advection (W / 1 hour)
		THEA - Theta-E Advection (Degrees Kelvin / 1 hour)
		3TPF - Three Hour Temperature (Fahrenheit) Tendency
		3TPC - Three Hour Temperature (Celsius) Tendency
		3DWF - Three Hour Dewpoint (Fahrenheit) Tendency
		3DWC - Three Hour Dewpoint (Celsius) Tendency
		3PRS - Three Hour Sea Level Pressure (Millibar) Tendency
		3THA - Three Hour Theta (Kelvin) Tendency
		3THE - Three Hour Theta-E (Kelvin) Tendency
		3VOR - Three Hour Vorticity (1/s * 10^5) Tendency
		3DIV - Three Hour Divergence (1/s * 10^5) Tendency
Valis options for SAT:
	SAT = VIS
		Visible Satellite data
	SAT = IR
		IR Satellite Data
Valid Options for WIND:
	WIND = BARB
		This will plot only the observed METAR station wind barbs
	WIND = STRM
		This plots streamlines. Works best with PAREA = CONUS or GOES-E. Broken for everything else.

Please report errors/issues to keltonhalbert@ou.edu