The Arkansas Red River Basin River Forecast Center (ABRFC) at Tulsa is
releasing r.stage3, a program to convert stage3 precipitation data to GRASS
raster map. You can obtain the program via anonymous ftp from the following
site:
gopherpc.abrfc.noaa.gov
/pub/grass/r.stage3.tar.Z
Following is the README file of the program.
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INFORMATION ON ABRFC PRODUCTS
-----------------------------
The Arkansas-Red river Basin Forecast Center (ABRFC) covers the entire state of
Oklahoma as well as parts of Kansas, Colorado, Arkansas, New Mexico, Texas
and Missouri. The ABRFC provides NetCDF files as well as GIF files of hourly
precipitation on its gopher server:
gopherpc.abrfc.noaa.gov (192.133.17.165)
The NetCDF files are contained in the /pub/StageIII/NETCDF_files. The GIF files
are contained in the /pub/StageIII/GIF_files. Files in this directory are
produced every hour (6am to 10 pm -- During non-flood season and 24hours during
flood) and are held for three consecutive days after its generation. The NetCDF
files are named after the ending ZULU hour of the data contained within. All
NetCDF files have a ".nc" suffix to it and all GIF files have a ".GIF" suffix
to it. These products are made available to public free of cost. Future
products will include a 24hr NetCDF file ending at 12Z each day.
SOFTWARE MODULE TO CONVERT NetCDF FILES TO GRASS RASTER MAPS
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r.stage3 is an initial attempt to convert NetCDF files containing rainfall
precipitation data into GRASS raster maps. The NetCDF files containing the
precipitation values in the units of 1/100 of mm can be obtained from ABRFC's
gopher server. r.stage3 program generates the GRASS raster map layers only
in the Lat/Lon coordinate system. UTM is not utilized because the Area being
refrenced is too large for a UTM zone. The region settings for the ABRFC's
coverage area is:
______________________________________________________________
projection: 3 (Latitude-Longitude)
zone: 0
north: 41:16:06N
south: 32:48:28N
east: 90:53:28W
west: 107:08:03W
______________________________________________________________
The r.stage3 module can be obtained from the ABRFC's gopher server. r.stage3
can be run only within GRASS.
Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software and its
documentation for any purpose without fee is hereby granted. ABRFC or the
National Weather Service (NWS) makes no representations about the suitability
of this software for any purpose. It is provided "as is" without express or
implied warranty. It is provided with no support and without obligation on the
part of ABRFC or the NWS, to assist in its use, correction, modification, or
enhancement. However, if this software is used, it is requested that proper
acknowledgement be given to the ABRFC or the NWS.
COMPILING r.stage3 MODULE
-------------------------
You will need the NetCDF libraries created by the Unidata Program Center. The
NetCDF libraries can be obtained via anonymous ftp from unidata.ucar.edu under
pub/netcdf/netcdf.tar.Z. You will the need to compile the libraries. r.stage3
can be only run within GRASS. GRASS is a public domain GIS which can be obtained
from U. S. Army Construction Engineering Research Laboratories. The anonymous
ftp addresss for obtaining GRASS is moon.cecer.army.mil. r.stage3 needs both the
NetCDF libraries as well as the GRASS libraries. If you have all the libraries
then r.stage3 can be compiled simply by running "gmake" (For GRASS 4.1 it is
gmake4.1) in this directory.
RUNNING r.stage3 MODULE
-----------------------
r.stage3 has the following commandline syntax:
_______________________________________________________________
Usage:
r.stage3 [-v] input=name [output=name]
Flags:
-v Verbose
Parameters:
input Name of the netcdf file to be converted
output Name of the resultant raster map
_______________________________________________________________
In the above, if output parameter is not specified then a mapname with
the same name as that of the input parameter is created. The rainbow
colortable is created for the resultant map.
Few sample NetCDF files and the corresponding GIF files are provided
in the sample directory. The vector directory contains the vector boundary
output from the command v.out.ascii of the ABRFC basin.
To run r.stage3 on the sample files just go into the sample directory and type:
_________________________________________________________________
r.stage3 -v in=04059418.nc
_________________________________________________________________
This will create a raster map by the name 04059418.nc. Similarly r.stage3
can be run on other sample files. You can use the corresponding GIF files
to compare them. Since the GIF files is in a different projection system,
There is some distortion in between the raster maps and the GIF file.
However the values in the raster are properly georefrenced.
QUESTIONS:
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All questions concerning the stageIII data only should be sent to
Norman L. Bingham at the ABRFC for the ABRFC area of responsibility at:
_____________________________________________________________
Norman L. Bingham
Phone: (918) 581-7632
E-mail: nlb@apwk01g3.abrfc.noaa.gov or nlb@192.133.17.71
_____________________________________________________________
All questions concerning stageIII precipitation algorithms should be sent to
William E. Lawrence at the ABRFC for the ABRFC area of responsibility at:
______________________________________________________________
William E. Lawrence
Phone: (918) 581-7633
E-mail: wel@apwk01g3.abrfc.noaa.gov or wel@192.133.17.71
______________________________________________________________
All questions concerning the r.stage3 module under GRASS should be directed to
Nalneesh Gaur at:
______________________________________________________________
Nalneesh Gaur
Phone: (918) 581-7634
E-mail: ngaur@apwk01g3.abrfc.noaa.gov or ngaur@192.133.17.71
______________________________________________________________
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Nalneesh Gaur, ABRFC, TULSA