NWS text warnings, alerts, Surface Observations, Precip & Flood Forecasts

A side bar web browser for more weather  info or your web page of interest

And Lat/Long Gridded Historical Rainfall ... AND Storm Track Basin Rainfall Forecasting.

May 2022:  NWS has replaced the N0Q product with N0B and Iowa Mesonet has updated to it.  Same as N0Q in all respects so I don't get why.

Dec 2020:  The NWS has discontinued making PNG/GIF images for all their Nexrad Radar products. Iowa Mesonet is now the only source for select REALTIME radar images. The discontinued day old NWS image products can still be manually downloaded and processed by GetNexrad using the NWS 'Weather and Climate Toolkit' (see below). The discontinued world files need to be installed for GetNexrad to open radar sites you havent visited yet. To add these needed files, download Ridge1WorldFiles.zip and save the zip file in your GetNexrad folder. Unzip and reset the destination to your GetNexrad folder like:

 C:\Program Files (x86)\GetNexrad\

or if you use projects reset unzip destination like:

C:\GetProjects\GetDome\GetNexrad\

You should end up with a folder looking like:

..\GetNexrad\Ridge1WorldFiles\

GetNexrad is a tool used to view real-time area radar rainfall loops and to generate the basin point file (NexradPointESX10210.txt) used by GetRealtime.exe for computing the basin area average rainfall time series in real time at gridded and not so gridded points.  If you just want to download up to the past 4 hours of radar images without using GetRealtime you can (and you NASCAR racing fans should skip to the bottom of this page)... but you will be missing the power of GetRealtime to maintain a real-time database of radar adjusted rainfall and runoff.  Includes the 31 Canadian C band radars (10-minute, 1 km, 2.5 dbz for past 48 hours).

GetNexrad converts radar dBZ to rainfall and snowfall amounts with loops and graphical storm tracking.  Storm ETA at any point of interest.  Alarms! for Weather Service issued warnings.  Mouse zoom and pan with drill down navigation from the mosaics to radar sites and neighbor sites.  Reads NOAA Weather Toolkit historical radar KMZ files and 0.5 dBZ long range higher resolution images. Goggle Map overlays, real-time surface observations, and a web browser sidebar for even more real-time weather info.

Getting Started:

Download GetNexrad and get started.

Determine and save exact point locations on the radar image.

Determine and save boundary area pixel locations on the radar image.

Getting started with Level 2 and Level 3 HISTORICAL radar images.

Gridded Lat, Long Rainfall Output (and not so gridded).

"Niagara Falls!  slowy I turned... step by step... Nexrad is migrating to Ridge 2.

View port aspect ratio setting for wide screens.

Current Surface Obs/Analysis for Temp, Dew Point, Gusts, Pressure, Wind Barbs.

Graphical Storm Tracking and Forecasting.

Display subbasins, stream lines, data values, and thumbnail plots.

Depth-Duration-Frequency tables.

Batch Mode.

Coordinating Setup Folders with GetRealtime.

Multiple Setup Files.

Display all Canadian radars.

Traditional area average rainfall is obtained by rainfall gages located in or near the area of interest and averaging the rain gage amounts using many methods.  If you’re lucky you might find a rain gage nearby or you would have to install and maintain a network of rain gages yourself.   The tools presented here will allow you to create point rainfall rates ANYWHERE in the USA and greatly improve area averaged amounts and best of all IT’S FREE!!!  Update 2/17/10:  'ANYWHERE' is a bit of an exaggeration.  It's more like 70 miles or less from a radar site in winter without your help and 'greatly improve' is really going out on a limb, but read on... it's still free.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is a fantastic government agency responsible for the majority of the weather data and alerts in the United States. Using their publicly available and easily accessible reflectivity data from one of the WSR-88D class radar systems (NEXRAD), the tools presented here will show you how to choose a location and set up rainfall collection for a precise geographical area... or you can just click on a location on the fly willy nilly.

NOAA’s explanation of the WSR-88D radar system. (or http://www.roc.noaa.gov/)

Do you want the truth?  You can't handle the truth.

Let's have a conversation... not to fear...venture on because we will adjust it. Forget about their dumb rationalization for their perfect radar and the odds of getting a half mile volume from 10,000 ft in a stiff wind to fit through an off centered 8" hole, we will make that darn radar fit in that 8 inch hole one way or another with a whole lot better results than those ol' naysayers at headquarters can do (N1P)... so read on (we don't have the task of the whole radar field like they do.)

GetNexrad Requirements:

Hardware--MS Windows 98 or better with display of 24?-bit colors...probably not a deal killer so try it (gdiplus.dll graphics is used and can be downloaded from Microsoft for free for Windows 2000/98).

Software--For a single point rainfall, see LatLongPixels.exe below.  For area averaged rainfall, GetMapArea version 2.5 or later is a must for creating the basin boundary, optionally GetRealtime for automating real time collection, storage, and display of the basin rainfall.  If you have your basin boundary already in a Lat/Long file, then see LatLongPixelsFromFile.exe below also.  These softwares are available online for free at www.GetMyRealtime.com.

Image Acquisition--Level III GIF images NOAA Ridge Version 1, 600x550 pixels.  (NOAA Ridge Version 2 PNG higher resolution images 1000x1000 pixels is reschedluled for operation March (you pick the year) and GetNexrad 2.3 now reads the Ridge2 Testbed with new higher resolution dBz products.)

The WSR-88D class radar systems have many acquisition modes for developing data on atmospheric precipitation. The most commonly used form of radar rainfall energy return mapping are the Base and Composite Reflectivity, and also the 1-Hour Total Precipitation.  The 1-Hour Total image (N1P) has had additional processing to better correlate with actual rainfall for different seasons and areas so they say, but I would stick with N0R (and now N0Q!!!!) and you will be way ahead in this game, believe me.  We can use any of these three images for the processing of localized precipitation information.

There are 2 levels of precision for NEXRAD data but only one for graphic images in real-time. We will be using Level 3 products for real-time in the form of downlaoded GIF images every 5 minutes. All Nexrad products are available historically through their WTC toolkit. Here are the difference in data precision:

LEVEL 3 (NOAA images provided in real-time):

Each of the 360 base scans at 0.5 degree tilt radar beam half power cones is divided into scan volume bins that each covers 0.6 miles in range and would be 1.2 miles wide and high at the 75 mile mid-range bin and would be scanning at a mid-beam elevation of 6,600 feet with standard refraction above the radar elevation. Each of the 550x600 pixels of the radar gif image is about 0.009 degrees of latitude and longitude or about 0.6 miles x 0.5 miles which easily handles all the Level-3 binary product's spatial resolution. The dBz resolution is 5 dbz in 16 steps above zero. A great new real-time higher resolution base reflectivity product is N0Q at 1 degree x 0.6 miles x 0.5 dbz at 1000x1000 pixel png but images are only available on the new Ridge2 Testbed (and Iowa Mesonet), skip below here.  N0Q sure looks like Level 2 data to me! YES!!!  It's like pulling teeth to get more colors from them old farts at headquarters.... Actully the 'Lite' images I am starting to find very useful too in my scanning web browser apps.

LEVEL 2 (requires NOAA's Tool Kit image output):

The azimuthal resolution is doubled from 1 degree to 0.5 degree, reflectivity bin gate spacing is dequadrupled  from 0.6 miles to 0.16 miles, and increased Doppler data (wind speed) range from 143 miles to 186 miles. The dBz resolution is increased 10 fold from 5 dbz to 0.5 dbz.  As my inside contact Tim says, Not bad for the sleepy old goats I protrayed them to be. ;-)

NOAA NEXRAD data is free at both resolutions but in a binary format that must be processed by the user into visual content using their free NOAA Weather Toolkit. You can download and try their free software here. Update on NOAA's tool kit.  The latest version provides everything we need as KMZ animated files to provide historical radar PNG image files.  The output KMZ files must be renamed to *.ZIP so that Windows Explorer can extract the PNG image files and the KML world file.  Now Level 2 PNG historical and real-time images can be read by GetNexrad.exe and the GetAcess Database updated (see below).

Looks like the Holy Grail of  Level 2 in graphic format  is finally on the menu boys.  Huge Thank You to NOAA and the Toolkit Guy!!!  I will try some historical comparisons of Level 2 versus Level 3 real-time to see how the resolution effects compare at some locations that have already been processed in real-time.  It takes more than an hour to process the over 300 images for a day's duration, so this historical stuff isn't so cheap and easy in mine and my processor time... although the Toolkit still allows continuing other PC stuff.

Level 2 in all of its Magnificent Glory!!! (990x864 png)

Ok, you had to have been there.  (Catalog KTWX_V03_20090601_210444_REF_0053-60615.png)

For comparison, here is Level 3 at the same zoom (990x864 png):

I forgot to recreate the overlay so it looks like the zoom covers the whole state of Kansas.  Both radar images are actually about 50 miles x 50 miles.

The great new N0Q didnt exist at the time for comparison.

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Jump Start Tutorial for Getting Started with GetNexrad.exe Ver. 3.x:

1)  Download the setup file 'setupGetNexrad.exe', install, and read the 'README.txt' file.

Tip: On Windows 7 or Windows 8 always run these setups as Administrator. From Windows Explorer right click on the setup.exe file and select Run as administrator.

(If you watched the Youtube Getting Started you no longer have to extract the mosaic overlays.)

2)  Fire up GetNexrad.exe, Right Click the radar image for the update menu, check the 'New Site' box on the update radar screen in the upper right menu, and press the large 'Update Radar' button. Then select from the radar list 'US USA ConUS' to view the radar mosaic for the full Continental USA N0R reflectivity.

3)  The USA Mosaic update shows current radar reflectivity for the US.  Double Click on a hot spot of reflectivity to zoom in on, and the Regional Mosaic for that location will be downloaded and displayed.

4)  The Regional Mosaic shows the same current radar reflectivity for just that region.  Double Click on a hot spot of reflectivity to zoom in on and finally the Radar Site for that hot spot will be downloaded and a message will be shown saying that overlay files and a world location file have also been downloaded.

5)  Click the 'Create Overlay' menu button to convert these files into a single usable overlay file and the radar image will then appear with the overlay displayed.  This is only needed once for each new radar site.

6)  You may zoom and pan the image with the mouse wheel and drag the image around, right mouse click to toggle menus.

7)  To go to a neighboring  radar site just Double Click the radar site image in the new direction in the area beyond the 144 mile range and the radar site nearest to that click location will be downloaded.

8)  To back up through your current session of radar images, click the 'Stepping' check box on the upper right menu and the stepping command buttons will be displayed in the top center of the screen.  Click the '<<<' back button to step backward through your images now on file.  At any point you can repeat the downward drilling or zooming  process above.

9)  To create a radar looping sequence,  Right Click the radar image for the update menu, set the 'Hours' for the duration of the radar loop and press the large 'Update Radar' button.  The looping sequence of images for the current image will begin.  This will also reset the session images that can be backward stepped into that had been set above.  All downloaded images will remain on file for later viewing and for your housekeeping duties (just delete them as desired and empty your Recycle Bin).

10) With a looping radar sequence in motion,  Select a hot spot by Left Click to set a 1 pixel point location to convert the radar image colors into a running total of rainfal in inches for the point you chose. Double Click to clear current location then Left Click a new location to select a different point.  Click the 'Graph' box to watch it accumulate.  See storm tracking at bottom to figure out what those other clicks do.

11)  To start the process above all over again from any point, press the 'Select Radar Gif Image' menu button and select the full 'USA_N0R_0.gif' image or any other image for your new starting point.  You do this enough and you will soon get to be an expert in US geography and city names.  I've been everywhere man!  I wonder how long it would take to have downloaded every radar site overlay.  I'm working on it!!!

12)  To create ZOOMED google map overalys, just zoom in before you create your overlays. To reset the overlays, just hit the 'reset' button beside the 'Create' button.  To re-zoom hit the same button.  You can only zoom as far as 2 radar pixel widths on your screen due to my integer pixel math (1-1=0).  The old N0R point and boundaries will not plot on zoomed N0Q images so use 'Create Point File' to convert them to N0Q or start from scratch (recommended) or use N0R boundaries only on N0R images.  And remember all points will plot at radar pixel centers so don't try to figure out why your house doesn't even plot on your street because the nearest radar pixel is as good as it gets and all that matters.  Update 1/30/2014--LatLongPixel.exe has been updated to write the decimal centroid pixel, but you will have to redo your point boundaries.

To get your mind straight about this, a good check for everything is the only known point on the radar image and that is the radar location.  So you could use LatLongPixels or LatLongPixelsFromFile and create a point boundary from the known radar lat/long.  Because the radar lat/long may not be exact it should plot very close to the zoomed Google Topo satalite underlay image when zoomed in to the max beacuse its not a pixel center... BUT the same lat/long pixel center from a boundary file will be at the center of the pixel, just a smidgen off.  Give it a try to see what I mean (see update just above).

13) The next step, if you accept this mission, is to install GetMyRealtime.exe and create a point or area averaged rainfall/snowpack record for you location of choice as described below.

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Getting Started with GetNexrad Video:

Rainfall Z-R Conversion:

You can change the N0Q, N0R, and NCR dBz to Rainfall Rates by clicking on the Reflectivity DBZ legend value to change and edit the value in the upper left screen text box for the current session or... Now even easier is to click on the DBZ Caption and select the conversion type as skip below here.

AlsoI have updated GetNerad.exe dated 8/11/10 to allow users to change the rainfall default rates by including the optional file 'Dbz2Rainrate.txt' that has just the one line that could look likes this:

 0, 0, 0.03, 0.06, 0.14, 0.32, 0.73, 1.65, 3.77  (now includes 10 and 15 dbz that are usually zero)

The values above are for the standard NWS Convective Storm rates shifted higher by 2.5 dbz. The upper values were not changed and so are not included.

Also the NWS sometimes even double the Convective Rates above for the dBz range up to 55 dbz for the terror of the atmosphere... TROPICAL RATES!!! Luckily these doubled rates only occur in the U.S. with hurricanes but... each radar site will probably experience a Tropical event during a forecasters career. Boy, I would not want to be that forecaster. Events like Big Thompson, Colorado and Johnstown PA are examples descibed here.

The formulas below are from the NOAA ROC for other conversions you may wish to try:

Marshall-Palmer (Z=200R^1.6) General stratiform precipitation

East-Cool Stratiform (Z=130R^2.0) Winter precipitation - east of continental divide

West-Cool Stratiform (Z=75R^2.0) Winter precipitation - west ofcontinental divide

WSR-88D Convective (Z=300R^1.4) Summer deep convection

Rosenfeld Tropical (Z=250R^1.2) Tropical convective

Viewed in context it appears I may want to look into using the East/West Cool Stratiform values for winter and Tropical for hurricanes.

Included is the utility program LatLongPixels.exe used to convert any Latitude and Longitude for any point on any Radar site image to X,Y pixels.  Wunderground weather stations include their Lat/Long and this utility will make it easier to more accurately determine its point file value.

Update 7/17/2012,  If you already have boundary files in Lat/Long's then you can use LatLongPixelsFromFile.exe included in the full GetNexrad download  to convert them to a GetNexrad and GetRealtime boundary pixel format.  You can use LatLongPixelsFromFile's 'View', 'Other Boundary Files' to also view your regualar NexradBoundaryESX10nnn.txt files and to show each boundary point location. This can help on small basins for checking point file 0's and 1's. 

Update 3/1/2014:  LatLongPixelsFromFile.exe can also read your current NexradBoundaryBMX10612Q.txt radar BMX file and convert it to another nearby radar site like NexradBoundaryMXX10612Q.txt.  Both multi-point boundarys and single point boundarys.

It may also be a good idea to always use GetMapArea to digitize your boundarys in Lat/Long instead of Pixels now because they can be converted by LatLongPixelsFromFile to any Nexrad product and the Lat/Long's may prove useful in the future.  To wit... LatLongPixelsFromFile can now save your lat/long boundary to a KML file for zoomed in viewing with Google Earth.  WeatherToolkit KMZ's can now be overlayed by your boundary KML...with 'Open' your kml file.  Not sure why but you could.  Ok, I am working on zoomed google overlays someday in GetNexrad... update...the future is now!  GetNexrad with ZOOM!!!

Important Update 8/24/2016:  The free Googe Earth Pro can save its 'Add', 'Polygon' to KML file so you can now use my GoogleKML2Text.exe from the download page to convert Google's KML to text for use by LatLongPixelsFromFile.exe.  You can use GetMapArea to load the EPA Waters hydro units and catchments and then use Googles  'Add', 'Polygon' and save to kml.  Time marches on!  I remember drawing a line on my mouse as a pointer and VERY carefully digitizing paper USGS maps.

LatLongPixelsFromFile:

Saved as KML for zoomed viewing on Google Earth:

LatLongPixels:

Knowing the Wunderground Rainfall gage location of 323, 185 in pixels you can create the Boundary and Point files using Notepad like this:

Title Line for Boundary File example for a Single Point Rainfall 

322, 184

322, 186

324, 186

324, 184

322, 184

Xmin 322, Ymin 184, Xmax 324, Ymax 186

Centroid= 323, 185

The Point File is just these 2 lines:

323,185,323,185

1

Or you can let LatLongPixels latest version create the single point boundary and point files for you.  These 2 files are then copied to your Nexrad Radar Gif file folder where GetNexrad and GetRealtime can find them.

If you would like to compute the whole radar screen area average rainfall or maximum values for NET and NVL then here is an example Boundary file for pixel values that you can have GetNexrad compute the point file for that will cover the whole 143 mile radar radius area.

Grand Junction Full Radar Area

 10,50

 10,499

 589,499

 589,50

 10,50

 Xmin 10, Ymin 50, Xmax 589, Ymax 499

 Centroid= 299,274

Creating a point location with LatLongPixels.exe video:

I should mention that the Lat/Long Nexrad radar site positions given by the NWS are only to 3 decimal places and should be 4 for proper display of range rings and radar point relative to images.  For my frequent radar sites I have used Google Earth to find the radar and update my tab delimited file 'RadarSites.txt' to 4 decimals.  4 decimals for lat/long is a good rule of thumb for this stuff.  Having a good radar location is also useful for checking that KMZ Toolkit zoomed images are what you think and I try to include the radar for them if possible (there is no dBZ around radar points.).

I found that you can digitize a lat/long boundary directly in Google Earth also. To do this click 'Add', 'Path' and give it a name but do not close this name box until you have finished. Click away and then close the box. Now on the 'View', 'Sidebar', 'My Places' you should see your boundary name. Right click on it and 'Save As' a KML file. Open the saved KML file with Notepad and cut and paste the lat/longs into Excel and away you go. Basin area computation has been added to LatLongPixelsFromFile.exe so you do not have to redigitize the boundary for the basin area as square miles.

Area Averaged Boundaries::

For definition of Nexrad image pixel locations and boundaries, the GetMapArea's General Pixel scale can be set on maps like the Big Google Map image options.  Use my GetMapArea's 'Google Map Lat/Long' option  to locate Lat/Long point locations.  Find 2 intersections of the highways or text or something located within your better map view that are located roughly on a screen diagonal to enable determing both the X and Y scaling.  locations at about the same screen height would poorly determine the Y scaling so choose 2 points on a screen diagonal. With the 2 long/lat pair of values use LatLongPixels.exe to convert them to radar image pixel X,Y pairs.  Use the 2 X,Y pixel pair values to set GetMapArea scale on the better map using the 'General Pixels' method. You now can create a better defined pixel boundary file for use with GetNexrad.exe and GetRealtime.exe.  For an example of the Better Maps method go here.

*** USGS MAP VIEWER GetMapArea Menu Option *** This option is something new and very buggy from the USGS. Do not use the scale legend for scaling. Its probably 100% off. Add scanned topo and use the 6 mile township or 1 mile section lines or Google Earth 2 points and calculate the horizontal distance. Hydrography + Scanned Topo or Contours is really good for determing boundaries. Even has the lat/long so this option will probably become your map source of choice. Just follow the cut and paste instructions above for Google Maps. AND DON"T USE THE SCALE LEGEND OR DISTANCE CALCULATOR!

***WATERSKMZ by the EPA*** This option is accessed by your Web Browser outside of GetMapArea at:

http://www.epa.gov/waters/tools/WATERSKMZ/WATERSKMZ.html

Click on the (Raster).KMZ and zoom in to even small defined 'Catchments' and 'HUCs' on Google Earth. This may be even better than the USGS Map Viewer above... and again copy/paste and use Lat/Long scaling to digitize your boundary in GetMapArea or you can even use Google Earth to to digitize and save a path file from the side bar and import into Excel (tip: dont close the path info until finished, then press OK)

If you use Google Earth for an image be very sure you have not zoomed in so far that it is skewed by 'Ground View'.  You can turn off this skewing by 'Tools', 'Options', 'Navigation' and check 'Do not automatically tilt while zooming'.

Creating a Boundary Area with GetMapArea.exe video:

Creating Overlays:

 To create a radar image overlay file like ESXoverlay.png follow these steps:

1) Start with your new radar location of interest.  Simply Right Click the radar image as shown below and check 'New Site' and press 'Get Radars'.  Select the new radar site and all the needed files for creating a new site overlay will be downloaded.  Then simply folow the prompts... but you still need the Boundary and Point files to calculate rainfall. By the way, radar images will be dated in your PC's time zone, not radar time, not universal time, not Greenich... your time!... deal with it!... Actually now you may adjust the recorded time in the Access Database using the 'rtable' parameter 'shift_time' to any time, even back to Zulu.

GetNexrad can down load  the past 4 hours of radar reflectivity, precip, and velocity gif images in case you have not set up GetRealtime.exe or are not staying current by running GetRealtime.exe in batch mode.  Right click the radar image and select the number of hours to retrieve and press the 'Get Radars' button.  Remember, GetNexrad.exe is firstly a tool for viewing saved images from GetRealtime and thinks you know your radar sites by radar and product code and uses the 'Select Radar Gif  Image' to get the currently downloaded images for viewing which you can then update by a right click of the image and 'Get Radars'.  Select multiple GetRealtime saved files for looping.  And be sure to empty your Recycle Bin often or your mom will not be pleased.  General Nexrad questions are answered here.

Now that you can convert a radar image to rainfall you might ask, "Does this radar stuff really work?".

Well, I am up to the challenge, what say you?  Check out my rainfall comparisons here.  And for an automated real-time Nexrad to Rainfall to Runoff example study go here.  These two studies show the process I went through learning how NEXRAD radar works. For a complete list of current studies that include radar adjustment and snowmelt see my web's Site Map.

If you are viewing an auto updating radar loop and you minimize the GetNexrad window, then the current cumulative rainfall and time will be displayed in the Windows tray.  It will be updated every 3 minutes as the loop is updated and you can go about your other work with out missing any rainfall or wasting cpu usage..

You can navigate starting with the USA_N0R_0.GIF mosaic radar image down to the regional moasic images, and then down to the nearest radar site by double clicking on these images on the points of interest. Once you are at the radar site, you can navigate to nearby radar sites by double clicking on the area beyond the 144 mile range in the direction you want to go.

That’s almost it.  I hope you will take the next step in setting up GetRealtime to automate retrieval, storage, and display of your basin of interest’s rainfall amounts and learn how to compute runoff and route it.  GetMapArea is an easy and fun way to get started computing runoff.

NOTES: 

Sometimes a corrupt radar gif file will freeze the GetNexrad.exe program and the offending gif file should be deleted. If the offending gif file is your default gif file on start up, then you will have to delete the gif manually using Windows Explorer.

If you would like to be able to select the radar site location itself as the center of the range instead of your point or boundary location then you can copy the dummy text file named 'RadarSite' without the '.txt' extention in the GetNexrad directory to your directory for your radar gif files.  You can then select it from the list of boundaries displayed when you press 'Select Radar Gif Image'.

GetNexrad version 2.3 supports the 10 regional  US mosaics and the entire continental US radar gifs.  LatLongPixels.exe has been updated also to support lat/long to pixel locations on these gifs.  Areal averaged rainfall for basins the size of  Texas are now possible.  GetNexrad 2.3 comes with state overlays for these mosaics because the NWS does not supply them.

GetNexrad version 2.3.1 has added radar station ID's AA0 to AA9 to the file 'radarfiles.txt' for anyone wanting to add some of their favorite web url's for Gif, Jpeg, or Png file formats.  Just use Notepad to edit or replace any of the AA sites I have added seperating each field with a tab.  I have added some Warning Gifs, a Satelite Jpg, and a live cam Jpg of a Nexrad radar site 10,000 feet up in the Rockies.

Also I just noticed that when naming directories and folders, the letter sequences '_N', '_AA', and '_US' will create a problem for GetNexrad determining the radar product type. So use the character '_' with caution in your folder names.

In addition to the milage (not nautical but real miles), the Range circles include starting with the range miles at 12 o'clock and going  clockwise, the radar beam width in miles, the elevation in feet above sea level for the bottom of the radar beam at the lowest scan angle of 0.5 degrees with standard air refraction index of 1.21 and for the curvature of a standard earth, and the center of the radar beam elevation.  This info will help explain why the image is more jagged and why winter storms can slip under the radar the further you are from the radar site with all things being standard.

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Getting started with Level 2 and Level 3 HISTORICAL radar images.:

New GetNexrad 3.6.0--Iowa State University Mesonet historical N0Q images can now be directly loaded for a loop of up to the past 24 hours (also by GetRealtime.exe).  The historical period for N0Q begins March 2010 or so and can vary.  Prior to March 2010, use Level2 history from WTC Toolkit below.

Be sure you have already viewed the real-time product (N0Q, etc...) before loading the Historical products.  The real-time world location files (*.gfw, *.pgw) will be needed.  Update 8/14/2012, LatLongPixels now supports KMZ world locations for finer tuning of you point and boundary locations files but will specific to that download only due to possible image size changes so be careful.

1) Install the free NOAA Weather and Climate Toolkit Version 3.5.9 . Besure to click the link "-- Check if you have a current version of Java installed --" before Launching the download.  Image colors change with each version so wct-3.5.9 and uses the Level2RGB.txt file in Level2RGB3.5.9.zip. WCT 3.6.5 uses the colors in Level2RGB3.6.5.zip. I also checked WCT3.7.5 and the Level2 and N0Q colors are still good... for now.

2) After installing the Toolkit, run the program "wct.exe" and you should be looking at a map of the USA. Maximize the window so that you will get consistant image sizes.

3) From the top menu select "Data", "Load Data", then select "THREDDS". Copy/Paste either of these 2 THREDDS Catalog URL:

http://motherlode.ucar.edu:8080/thredds/catalog/nexrad/level3/catalog.xml

or

http://motherlode.ucar.edu:8080/thredds/catalog/nexrad/level2/catalog.xml

and press the "List Files".

4) For Level 3, select the product code, N0R, for base reflectivity, then the radar site code. Level 2 goes directly to radar site code. Select any date for the last 30 days including the latest real-time image. To figure out what time the radar UT is, select the latest date and look at the latest radar coded time. For Pacific Standard Time (winter), you would add 8 hours (7 hrs summer) to your watch time to get the displayed radar UT zulu time.

5) Select the latest file displayed then press "Load" at the bottom of the form. ALWAYS do this first to set a consistant image size. Once one radar image is displayed, go back to the THREDDS form of displayed files and select several covering your period of interest. Start with about 6 files for about a 1/2 hour loop.

6) After selecting the 6 files, press the "Animate" button at the bottom of the form and the Animate Wizard form will appear. Select the Animation Type= "Export KMZ" which is a zipped file containing the 6 PNG images and a world location file KML.

7) Press "Start" on the bottom of the form. The KMZ Export form will appear. I have always selected "Drape over surface terrain" for the altitude. Then enter the Output File name on your computer and press "GO" button and the KMZ file will begin creation.

8) When finished the ANIMATION EXPORT COMPLETE form will appear. Select "No" for now. Close the Data Selector form and close the program "wct.exe" NOAA Weather and Climate Tookit.

9) Open your Windows Explorer and find the file you created "export.kmz". Right click on the file and select Rename. Rename the file "export.ZIP" so that the kmz file can be unzipped. Right click on the file "export.ZIP" and select Extract All... and extract the images and KML file.

10) Delete the file "export.ZIP" and start up GetNexrad.exe. Using GetNexrad, select "Select Radar Gif Image" and locate the 6 PNG images you extracted. You will be notified that a world file was created from the KML file and that you will have to Re Create Overlay if the image is a different size or locations. One thing about the Toolkit output images is that if there is no rainfall on the radar, the images will appear in red and oranges for some reason but that wont interfere with our rainfall calculations.

11) If you have created NEXRADBOUNDARY and NEXRADPOINT files for your regular realtime images, copy them to the same location as your new PNG images just created and you will be set to go (sort of). Any of the real-time boundary and point files for Ridge 1 or Ridge 2 can be used.  But for for zooming and better boundary definition you should convert your N0Q or N0R boundarys to KMZ boundarys using LatLongPixelsFromFile.exe. Just 'Open Input File' your *Q.txt boundry, 'Convert Latlong to Pixel', and 'Save Conversion'. Copy to your KMZ folder and 'Create Point File' with GetNexrad. You can now zoom on KMZ images.  YOU CANNOT ZOOM *Q.TXT BOUNDARIES ON KMZ.

IMPORTANT!!! Always make sure your radar plots over the cone of silence. If it does not, delete the file XXX_N0Q_0.kfw in your KMZ radar images and, reset the zoom, and then reload a current N0Q image.

Warning:  Never reuse a KMZ boundary file on other KMZ downloads with the 'K': NexradBoundaryDTX10nnnK.txt

You could use your realtime N0Q boundary file but could be up to 1 or 2 pixels off and very course: NexradBoundaryDTX10nnnQ.txt

12) If you select "Update Radar" while displaying the new PNG files you downloaded, GetNexrad will get the usual real-time GIF image so be aware. Be really aware! If in doubt its a good idea to Creat Overlay with each download and be sure you have 'Reset' a zoomed overlay before going to far.

13) I have found setting your computer's screen setting resolution will produce the following sized PNG images:

     800x600 >> 510x440 PNG

     1024x768 >> 734x608 PNG

     1280x1024 >>990x864 PNG

If your computer screen resolution is the 1024x768 or higher that should be sufficient for a full image. The standard real-time GIF images are only 600x550.  Ridge2 real-time PNG images are 1000x1000 but only the inner 500x500 having meaningful dbz. The larger Ridge2 pixel format is needed for keeping the same spatial resolution of the longer range N0Q and N0U products.  You can also zoom WCT way in before starting the animation for your area of interest for oodles of spatial resolution at lower screen resolutions and smaller output size.  I am not sure how your screen size will affect kmz creation times since downloading each 5-minute 2 megabyte binary radar file from NCDC for processing is the bottleneck..

14) If you have setup GetRealtime.exe to automate retrieval and storage of NEXRAD products, then the historcial data can be sent to the database by Right Click radar image LOOP, select your basin or point boundary name and check the Save box. The radar loop will store the looping image values in the GetAccess database or you can just write the data to the file "RainLoop.txt".

15) For Level 2 conversion of DBZ to Rainfall rate, you can adjust the rain rates in the Tab delimited file "Level2RGB.txt". The current values are the standard NWS Convective rates but limited for hail so as to be able to tell what DBZ was limited. As of Aug 9, 2012 the rates are now complete to 76 DBZ (Thanks to David in Alabama!).  Also for Level 2 there is info on it's quirks at the bottom of my Charlotte web page that will be helpful if you are rain gage adjusting the radar.

Level II is 0.25 km x 0.5 degree x 0.5 dbz and you would catch hell from ROC for mistating this! This includes both reflectivity and velocities. N0Q averages the level 2 into 1km grids and from my comparisons N0Q may be a slightly better choice for adjusted rainfall due to hitting a gage from 20,000 ft with a 1km vs 0.25km shot.

16) For older than 30 days historical data, click the "wct.exe" Toolkit menu "Data", "Find/Order Data" for the free achives at the NCDC. Also, click on the Help menu to get your bearings.

17) And again and as always, radar image UT Zulu time sent to the GetAccess Database will be dated in your current PC's time zone, not radar time, not universal time, not Greenich... your time!... deal with it!

Update, you can now use the 'time_shift' field in GetAccess table 'rsite' as described on the GetRealtime Help web page if you save your loop values to the database.

18) The level 3 higher resolution products N0Q and N0U have been archived since March 2010 at the NCDC.

19)  If you use the Toolkit KMZ much you should install GetNexrad in a seperate folder from your real-time GetNexrad folder to keep all the overlays and boundaries straight.  You can copy just the needed files below or use the full download setup to create a new folder anywhere you wish and use that GetNexrad.exe for working with the Toolkit output KMZ download folders.  Here are the needed files to copy to get started:

1) GetNexrad.exe

2) Level2RGB.txt

3) RadarSites.txt

4) RadarSite

5) MyBlank1000.PNG

And always download KMZ output to a new folder every time.

 20) If anyone has a need for Level 2 in realtime and can figure out how to run the wct Toolkit in batch mode to produce the kmz animation files, I am pretty sure I could automate the batch mode processing inside GetNexrad and GetRealtime so please let me know if you really need real-time Level 2.  In the mean time N0Q is pretty good as it is. Actually my Charlotte web page Level2 vs N0Q comparison has N0Q a somewhat better choice for radar adjustments.  The reason for this may be that you have a harder time hitting an 8 inch rain gage with the super high res 0.16 mile wide Level2 cell than with a 0.6 mile wide N0Q cell from 10,000 feet.

IMPORTANT!!! Always make sure your radar plots over the cone of silence. If it does not, delete the file XXX_N0Q_0.kfw in your KMZ radar images and, reset the zoom, and then reload a current N0Q image.

Tip:  If you use GetRealtime.exe to read your KMZ Toolkit images you have to rename the boundary and point files K to a Q in your KMZ download folder like this:

NexradBoundaryDIX-10207K.txt >>> NexradBoundaryDIX-10207Q.txt

and

NEXRADPOINTDIX-10207K.TXT >>> NEXRADPOINTDIX-10207Q.TXT

Then GetRealtime.exe can read them and process multi-boundaries much faster than GetNexrad.  And note that GetRealtime.exe doesn't use world files like DIX_N0Q_0.kfw.  So don't worry about that, it just needs the Point file.

Gridded Lat, Long Rainfall Output (and not so gridded)

Update 10/11/2012--If you would like to output a text file of gridded lat, long points you can. The trick is to tell GetNexrad that your Boundary file is really a gridded pixel points with lat,longs as a boundary file.  This pseudo boundary file does not have to be gridded.  It can be just your latlong points of interest.  (This is not a point file, the computed point file I wont even mention here and.... let's leave that there.)   Here is how to do this for say even an Historical Level2 Super High Resolution rainfall grid or your selected points of interest:

Note:  To create a tab delimited text file from an Excel range of columns just copy/paste into Notepad and save with .txt extension.  A single title line at top is also usually needed.

1) Say your lat, long grid is in an Excel file for the Detroit, MI area. Save your lat/longs as a tab delimited text file with just one title line. DetroitBoundaryGrid.txt (The 'Boundary' in the file name is important)

2) Save this boundary file in c:\Program Files\GetNexrad\LatLongPixelsFromFile.

 3) Run LatLongPixelsFromFile.exe and convert this latlong so called boundary to a pixel boundary file:

NexradBoundaryDTX10XXXQ.txt      (where the 'xxx' is not important here unless you were writing data to the GetAccess database, which we aint)

Now for a step by step instructions for historical KMZ level2 radar images:

Let's assume for the moment that you want to look at the DTX radar in realtime using the N0Q level3 product. The reason we start here is because as you may find out there are some world files (.gfw and .pgw) that say what the image upper left corner lat and long is and what size each pixel is.

So...Hold on to your hat, you may be in for a bumpy ride....

1) GetNexrad.exe is up and shows you the Las Vegas area or your saved image area.

2) Right click the image, check 'New Site' and then hit 'Update Radar'.

3) Select the Michigan DTX radar from the list and check 'N0Q" and hit 'OK"

4) You should see Michigan and the Detroit DTX Radar. You probably will get a prompt to create an overlay... so we will do that now.

5) On the right menu hit 'Create Overlay' and from the Overlay Menu hit 'Create Overlay / Topo'. You should now have a Google Map overlay and a Google Map topo underlay. That is all there is to realtime.

Now for N0AA's Weather and Climate Toolkit Level2 historical images now that we have the world files:

1) Assuming you have version WCT 3.5.9. This is very important because they keep changing the radar image colors. The latest stable version WCT 3.6.x colors requires a download of the latest color table (see historical radar section above).

2) Order your Level2 images from:

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/nexradinv/index.jsp

Remember to add 4 hours to the May 25 EDT to get Radar UTM times and paste the job number they give you into Notepad. My Job Number: 002533939

3) Wait for up to 1/2 hour for the order to go through.

4) Start up WTC 3.5.9 and we can convert the radar order into PNG images.

5) With a view of the US showing hit 'Data' from the top menu, then 'Load Data'.

6) From the NCDC Menu tab, enter you HAS Job Number: 002533939

7) Hit 'List Files' and then select JUST ONE image, check 'Reset Zoom', and hit 'Load'.

8) Close the Radial Properties menu... it just loaded base 0.53... I hope... and close Data Selector. You should see almost the whole 280 mile radius for level2.

9) Select the 'HAND' icon so you don't mess things up zooming and panning. Now using the hand and mouse wheel zoom into Detroit.

10) The Toolkit map is pretty Spartan so over on the right hit 'Launch KMZ' and you will see where your zoomed area is on Google Earth. After looking at where it is, close Google Earth and discard the Google Earth temporary places.

11) Rezoom as needed and now we are ready to Export the whole list of radar images to your computer. Again hit 'Data' from the top menu, the 'Load Data' and select the whole list to download. Uncheck 'Reset Zoom', and hit 'Animate'.

12) Select 'Export to KMZ' and hit 'Start'. From the KMZ Export menu select 'Drape over surface terrain' and for Output select where the export .kmz file will go on your computer and hit 'Go'.

13) Some hours later... ;-) when it is finished, close the WCT Toolkit and locate where your downloaded export file is with Windows Explorer and rename the file extension from .kmz to .zip. Extract all to file and we are ready to go with GetNexrad.exe again.

14) This next step is important because it will create a world file specific to these KMZ downloaded images. Start up GetNexrad.exe and hit 'Select Radar File Image' and find your unzipped folder and select one of the radar png files. You'll get a message about an overlay which you can do using the first step 5 above. You should see your image zoomed into Detroit on a Google Map. You can check the transparency on the Create Overlay menu to see through the radar if you like. After admiring your handy work, close GetNexrad, and we will tackle converting a Lat/Long 'Boundary' file to a pixel file.

15) Start up LatLongPixelsFromFile.exe and from the top menu hit 'File' then 'Open Input File' and if you have included the word 'boundary' in your lat/long filename you can select it from the list. Example:

DetroitBoundaryGrid.txt

16) Now select 'Convert' and 'LatLong to Pixel' and the Radar and Site Info input window will open. Change Radar Code to DTX and N0Q to KMZ and leave everything else as is. You will not be writing your data to the GetAccess database so you will not bother with the Datatype_Site_ID and hit 'OK'.

17) For KMZ conversion you are prompted to 'Locate your Toolkit PNG radar image' from the unzipped KMZ folder, select one,  and you should be 'Successfully Converted'. Why select an image???.. To find the folder with world file we created earlier from the kml file info.

18) Selet 'View' from the top menu and 'Boundry Picture' and you will see your 'boundary' pixels displayed.

19) Exit and save your pixel boundary to the default name it gives you and copy this file to the KMZ unzipped radar image folder. This boundary is only good for this KMZ download and not for other KMZ or realtime N0Q images. You could try using the standard N0Q boundary but it can be missing many of the finer grid points when zoomed.

20) Start up GetNexrad.exe, 'Select Radar File Image', and select one of your KMZ images you unzipped. Because you now have a 'Boundary' file in this folder it will be displayed as 10xxxK.txt where K means your KMZ kml file info was used oK. Double click your Boundary 10xxxK.... and you will get the error message 'File not found.... point file'. Click ok.

21) ..... We are getting there.... Select 'Create Point File', then 'Create File', and you will see your psuedo 'Boundary' displayed and a message... hit 'OK'.

22) Hit 'Select Radar File Image', select one of your radar png images, double click your 10xxxK Boundary, and viola... thar she blows!!! Zoomed Level 2 radar in all it's magnificent glory with radar cells 0.16 miles by 0.5 degrees.  Another tip of the hat to those sleepy ol' goats at Nexrad headquarters and the Weather Toolkit Guy!!!

To output a loop for your grid points select 'Save' while looping and select 'Grid (boundary) text file' and each grid point's output will be saved to the text file.  One caveat is that until you Save the loop as a "Grid", it will be using the Point file for averageing 'basin' rainfall, then after a save it will be using the "Grid" points as the 'basin' average.  If you Save to grid a 'real' boundary then you screwed up and you will have to re-select your radar images for the proper points inside your 'real' boundary.

It is up to you do describe your latlong input boundary points.  Either oddly spaced points of interest or an evenly spaced grid knowing you radar pixel resolution.  The above example was close, but clicking on GetNexrad's 'Lat Long' option for values to center the max and min latlong values and then using Excel to compute a grid would have been closer.  But all said and done, you will get your latlong, dbz, rain rate, rainfall increment, and running total rainfall how ever you come up with your so called 'boundary' grid.

Update 2/20/2013--If you want to get the lat/long for each Level2 radar bin in an area, try this Excel sheet.

And for added satisfaction, remember to use LatLongPixelFromFile.exe to save you 'boundary' as a KML file.  Then click on it with Windows Explorer and viola!  Its on Google Earth!

At this point some may be wondering why would anyone even want a gridded text output.  Well, I did too until it was explained how this grid can be contoured or surfaced for display or used as a matrix of rain gage points.  Ms Excel's graphing has a peculiar surface/contour graph setup where you will have to extract all longitudes for row 1 and then each latitude with associated values on the next rows.  Here is how to create surface and contour charts of your Grid (boundary) text file output in Excel.

How to do Excel Surface Charts: http://pubs.logicalexpressions.com/pub0009/lpmarticle.asp?id=447

(I gave up after about an hour and I really wanted to see something.)

Update 2/28/2013--The WCT.KML file is important but I dont know much about Google Earth but a satisfied user (John McMurray of TV/Consulting fame that created all this) says...

"As soon as you made mention of the wct.kml file I knew that was the problem... In my repeated attempts, I kept looking at that google earth view with the "slider" visible and I just had the feeling something was not correct. I didn't know what was wrong, but when you pointed this as something to check, I deleted everything in the My Place folder. In essence, I started with a clean slate with a new HAS bundle. In fact I lengthened the time period of images, and started again with the 105 tab delimited points covering the flood area and also a (Lat/Long) location of a rain gage. When I "launched KMZ", it was over a clean slate, and it worked perfectly. (( This maybe worth a sentence or two in your HELP file. ))"... well there you go.

Big tip of the hat to John McMurray at http://cwsweather.com/index.html ,the TV weatherman and weather consultant, in developing these gridded outputs.  Here is John's own visual collage example of output from GetNexrad to Excel and then displayed by Golden Software's Surfer grid and contouring software (I would not want this guy to show up in court with just your rain gage defense):

Yeah!, I thought that would grab ya!

Customer Spotlight>>>>

John's work is featured in the July 2013 Customer Spotlight of Golden Software's Newsletter Issue 71:

 http://www.goldensoftware.com/newsletter/issue71-customer-spotlight-john-mcmurray#

You may want to contact John for more in depth info on rainfall contour plotting and just how he gridded Level2 radar each 5 minutes. He even adjusted the rainfall based on nearby rain gages.

As noted above, I found that you can digitize a lat/long points directly in Google Earth also. To do this click 'Add', 'Path' and give it a name but do not close this name box until you have finished. Click away and then close the box. Now on the 'View', 'Sidebar', 'My Places' you should see your boundary name. Right click on it and 'Save As' a KML file. Open the saved KML file with Notepad and cut and paste the lat/longs into Excel and away you go.  So adding the WTC zoomed radar image first into Google Earth may be another way to locate radar cell locations.

********************************** ************************ 

Ridge 2 versus Ridge 1 Real-time radar images (Level 3 Products):

The NWS has started a test bed for their new higher resolution Level 3 image products as descibed here.  GetNexrad now supports this Beta test bed source, although the test bed is not always as responsive as desired.  Update 11/04/2011--Reading the 7.2 megabyte Ridge2 directory was the problem and has been fixed.  The new Ridge2 images are 1000x1000 pixels versus the old reliable Ridge1  600x550 pixels.  GetRealtime has also been updated to use the Ridge2 Testbed as an option available for testing.  During the  2012 Daytona speed week, the MLB radar had all kinds of missing N0R radars gifs as a rainstorm approched after practice 4. The N0Q test bed was flawless... so now N0Q is ol' reliable.

Old Reliable Ridge 1 N0R Image 600x550 pixels 1 degree x 0.6 miles x 5 dbz:

 Ai Yi Yi!!!  You mean they went to all this trouble and image size overhead just to produce the same 14 color donkey kong image???? What the hell!?!?  Why not add blinking!

Not so fast there amigo... The Ridge 2 Test Bed has two new products that are of super duper Level 2 dBZ and velocity resolution, N0Q base reflectivity and N0U base velolocity.  Yes that's right, Level 2 values in dBZresolution... so read on.

New Ridge 2 Image N0Q 1000x1000 pixels 1 degree x 0.6 miles x 0.5 dbz:

Not bad at all for those sleepy ol' goats at headquarters!!!

I will check out the differences in rainfall between the two and see what this new larger size image bottle neck has to offer.  I'm not sure why the spatial upgrade and then use the same 14 color range... they have a every color in Level 2 high resolution to use.  What am I missing?  Smell the coffee...  The fabulous N0Q product is the best choice now with 0.5 dbz resolution.

Be careful when just pressing the 'Update' button to get just the latest radar image from the Ridge2 testbed. It may be over an hour old. If you want the latest, get a loop.  And don't complain, this Ridge2 migration is being done by volunteers who already have a real day job.  The great Iowa State Mesonet N0Q option source works like a swiss clock!

As of Feb 27, 2013 only N0Q and N0U images are being updated on the Ridge2 Testbed.  Not sure if this is temporary or not.  The NWS testbed can be offline for several days and appears to be an orphaned step-child but the Iowas Mesonet keeps right on ticking.

As shown on the image above, click on the DBZ caption area to display these options for converting dbz to rainfall rates:

The dbz to rainfall rates are in the tab delimited file "Level2RGB.txt".  You can adjust these rates by editing this file but do not edit the color codes.  For instance My Semi-Tropical rates are the average of the Convective and the Tropical rates.  The included Level2RGBknotts.txt is needed for Ridge2 N0U higher resolution velocities.

Update 6/21/2013:  Iowa Mesonet's N0Q composite cutting service has been added for US mosaic 1700x800 pixel and the 10 regional 840x800 pixel mosaics as N0Q  Also each radar site can be cut as 'NCQ' 500x450 pixel out to only 150 miles which provides faster loops than N0Q.  The drawback to using these composite N0Q's is the highest dBz from nearby radars can be used which causes much higher rainfall.  Also, the higher elevations lets the wind blow it farther when gage ratioing.  'NCQ' is not a NWS product code.  It's my code for 'C'ut or 'C'omposite N0Q = NCQ.  If your regular N0Q site goes down then the NCQ may be an option to use your N0Q boundaries with but be sure you have a radar adjustment scheme in place.  MRMS Multi Radar Multi Sensor products from NSSL A2M and HRRR are processed just like Nexrad-NCQ images using the same subbasin and gage boundary and point files so use product code NCQ and Ridge2 with LatLongPixels.exe.

Also you can cut any location by editing the Tab seperated file RadarSites.txt and add your lat/long site ZZx as shown below where beyond the elevation, add radius in miles and image width in pixels:

WV RLX Charleston 38.311 -81.723 1211

WY CYS Cheyenne 41.152 -104.806 6191

WY RIW Riverton 43.066 -108.477 5630

WY ZZ1 MyLatLongBox1 43.066 -108.477 10 250 800

TX ZZ2 MyLatLongBox2 31.371 -100.492 10 300 500

Elevation is just a place holder and not used.  For loop speed keep width in pixels less than 800.

Update 11/09/2011...Added a sound alarm when there are Warnings for the radar site.  I put a siren on the sound card and a beep on the PC speaker in case the card is off.  To turn off warnings, uncheck 'Overlays' or uncheck 'Show Current Warnings' on the 'Create Overlay' options.

And while we are on the topic of tornados, the new higher dBz resolution test bed N0Q product clearly showed the hook echos and debri balls shown on the live TV Weather Channel analysis for the OK and AR tornados of  Nov 7-8, but the warnings on the radar periphery are of too low spatial resolution to see.  The N0Q images will show warnings out to 280 miles as compared to the N0R range of 144 miles.

Update 12/12/2011 Webscreen sidebar:

You can now edit the file 'GetWebSiteList.txt' using Notepad and add your Gages or Web pages of interest as shown here (no title):

0--KCAALTA3

1--KCAALTA3

2--KCAALTA3

Click Forecast

Click Quick Forecast

http://radar.weather.gov/ridge/lite/N0R/AMX_loop.gif

etc. etc. etc.....

The 0,1,2 are types of Wunderground displays.  You can choose which member of the list to use on the 'Create Overlay' menu screen and then press 'Exit'.  The 'Click Forecast' will get the NWS forecast for the location you mouse click on.  You can add as many other websites as you like.

Also new for users with W-I-D-E screens like laptops, on the 'Create Overlay' menu you can set the radar view port aspect ratio.  Try setting the ratio to 1, then check the box and the screen will resize, and now zoom.  Or drag the menu frame to make the picture square, then press the center of the small icon,  and zoom in.  I gave this aspect ratio = 1 my best shot but it is still elusive.  Just try try to make the radar range circles look round... or ignore the whole thing because it matters none.  You could unmaximise the GetNexrad window and resize as desired.

This also allows tinkering for more room for the sidebar web screens for even normal sized screens.  Remember even at 1:1 aspect, Lat:Long will not be but this can really help at northern latitudes (not needed for horse latitudes).

10-Minute Surface Observations with GetNexrad 3.4.0:

The 10-minute realtime surface observations Temp, Dew Point, Gusts, Pressure, Precip, and Wind Barb data are supplied by NOAA's Warning Decision Support System -- Integrated Information on their website here: http://www.wdssii.org

Update Oct 10, 2017: The WDSSII no longer provides the 2000 weather obs stations so I have created a list (METARlatlong.txt) of 127 airports to download the METARs instead. Not as nice but all I can find for now.

GetNexrad will display the approximately 2000 weather stations available or you can limit them.  This data delivery system is still experimental and this being a research system is not guaranteed to be available 24/7.  Not being a weather man myself,  I am not too sure what to make of this information... except the Temp... but if you do then here you go.  I think it is what you had go by before radar... Model T stuff.  Although it would be interesting to watch with a hurricane approaching... I hope I scaled the wind barbs ok for that scenario.  The wind barbs point in the direction from which the wind is blowing toward the center circle station location and the barb length is proportional to the average wind speed, not gusts.  Just bass ackwards of how a windsock works... but again I'm no weather man.  In fact this is making my head hurt just looking at it... so to go with the flow I will add a windsock option for us non-weatherized people.

The surface frontal analysis data is supplied by NOAA's Hydrometeorological Prediction Center every 3 hours.  The H, L, and Fronts are color coded as blue H = high pressure center, red L = low pressure center, red lines =warm fronts, blue lines = cold fronts, magenta lines = stationary and occluted fronts, and brown lines = trofs (extended low pressure and outflows).  I looked it up here: 

http://www.hpc.ncep.noaa.gov/html/fntcodes2.shtml 

The blue H is good, the red L is bad.  Winds go clockwise around highs, and counter clockwise around lows.  That's about all I know and I wonder why that is.  Like toilets below the equator probably.  And why hurricanes cannot cross the equator.... ok, that's just my hunch.

I have only just started viewing these surface obs but it seems so far that Gusts and Precip are not reported if zero and I do not plot zero WindBarbs, and that's ok.  But it's quite a hodge podge of available data otherwise I think.  I would expect a value for each parameter at each location every 10-minutes.  They should experiment fixing this before it rains.  The image below was my utopian thinking before I figured out what going on so don't expect all the data to show up as this displays, 4 values and a wind barb.  In fact do not ever expect it.  Who's in charge here?  Aside from this, the surface data will get to be mesmerizing.  Who cares about the radar!  Now you too can be a weather expert like me with the online crash course in meteorology by simply viewing these learning modules from the University of Illinois.

GetNexrad 3.4.1 can now animate the surface obs to go along with the radar.  But because only the current 10-minute values are available for download, you will need to have a 30-minute loop going for up to 30 minutes to fill each of the three 10-minute data slots.  You can change to other loops and the surface obs will continue to be filled without having to start over.

Utopoia:  

Also the Days 1-3 Quantitative Precipitation Forecast QPF contours have been added to the surface observation overlays.  The QPF product time period is described here.  The GetNexrad surface obs download form will display the QPF beginning time as your local time.  I think the Day 1 starting period will change from 00Z to 12Z with updates so two periods for Day 1's are possible each day... I think.  GetNexrad will not check for QPF updates during your loop updates because my head is spinning now.  Day1A and Day1B comes to mind.  Who's in charge here?

The Advanced Hydrologic Prediction Service (AHPS) flood forecast points above normal have now been added to the surface observation overlays.  When the overlay point is clicked, the side bar web window will display a hydrograph with the magnitude and uncertainty of occurrence of the flood, from hours to days and months, in advance.  Although it may seem over kill, the flood forecasts are updated every 15 minutes and if in a radar loop GetNexrad will check every 10 minutes with the other surface obs or 15 minutes if not.  The forecast points are color coded for the peak of the forecast flood as yellow will peak above normal stage, orange is minor flooding, red is moderate, and purple is major flooding.  In addition to the hydrograph, the side bar web window will display some great info about the flood forecast point.  This is some of the best stuff NWS has to offer I think... besides the radar... and the tempertures... and wind barbs.... etc.  They should all get raises.  But remember that the NWS can't watch every small basin so use GetRealtime and keep your eye on the radar to keep yourself minutes ahead of even the NWS small basin floods and other warnings.

QPF Precip Contours and Flood Forecast Points:

Graphical Storm Tracking Example:

Start a radar loop going for 0.5 hours duration with no boundary selected and while looping....

(If you have a boundary selected like a race track and not the radar then skip step #1)

#1  Click your point of interest, in this case the city Wichita Falls.

Now click 'Stepping' or the top center box Steps... and step back to beginning of loop.

#2  Click on storm cell of interest (usually leading edge or tornado eye).

Now step forward to the end of the loop.

#3  Click on new location of  the storm cell of interest.

Displayed in the upper left text box will be the distance away, ETA, and speed of travel.  Uncheck 'Stepping' to let the loop continue.  The projected orange line shows the distance to Witchita and the ETA is for the end of this projected line.... or Witchita if the storm takes a swing to the east.

You can repeat steps #2 and #3 if not satisfied.  Double click the image to clear all 3 points.  And with a little practice you could probably skip going into stepping mode.  And some may prefer to reverse steps #2 and #3.  Click on the cell at the end of the loop, then setp backwards and set the other cell point.  This may help when the rain front is less defined.

Tracking options on the 'Create Overlay' button allows for turning off showing the tracking set points for better viewing and also allows GetNexrad to automatically adjust the ending tracking point when the ending track point is not the original set point #2 dbz reflectivity.  This option will look forward along the tracking line to find any dbz value greater than or equal to the original #2 set point dbz within the tracking circle (5 pixel radius).  If nothing is found looking forwad it will look backwards to find a greater than or equal dbz value.  I am not sure yet if this option makes for a better tracking ETA so you be the judge.  It's like watching paint dry but I think it's a nifty refinement as the storm nears ground zero.  And you would not want to use this adjust option when tracking the trailing edge of the storm because you would soon find you would be tracking the leading side of the storm.  Also try tracking the non-radar color in just in front of the leading edge and this adjustment will keep the leading edge what ever reflectivity.  Lots of quirks, so as in life,  you need to be experienced. Or you can always just reset your tracking points manually as needed. 

Use tracking with 'Storm track forecasting' to provide up to 1 to 3 hours lead time based on storm type and tracking speed.  Your basin or point of interest is offset to tracking point #1 for nowcast rainfall computation where distance and storm speed will compute the nowcast time at the real basin location.  Write the nowcast unit values to GetAccess for real-time rainfall runoff and GetRealtime will overwrite as true radar basin rainfall comes in.  Not having much experience with this yet I assume one would have maybe a 2-hour radar loop going, set the 2 tracking points and then check 'Storm track forecasting' and 'Save' the values to the GetAccess database and run GetRealtime (w/radar adjust?) and runoff.  Then reset your tracking points every 15 minutes or so and repeat.  Stratiforms may use multiple nowcasts on the same loop and convective would pick up and move with the approaching storm. You be the pioneer here.  Update 5/9/2014--mulitple DISD's can be entered to update values from the single nowcast basin for sub-divided basins to make life easier.

And for overkill, add the NWS 6 hour to 72 hour Quantitative Precipatation Forecasts.  Just use the Surface Obs' QPF option to set the start and duration and eyeball your basin's QPF precip and away you go.  The QPF future precip will be reduced for actual realtime radar values as they come in and nowcast values. Your GetAccess database values will be 'source' coded as 13 for real radar values from GetNexrad, 14 for tracking nowcast values, and 15 for QPF values.

And if you would like to distribute the QPF values instead of just using the average 5-minute values you can use the 6-hour distribution file GetNexrad_6hour_Dist.txt. I have put in 4 distributions that you can adjust as you like but each should total 1.00 inch. GetMapArea is also good for comming up with these 5-minute distributions but I would stick to reality.

The above 2-hour distribution was taken from Denver, CO's Drainage Manual (noaa atlas) and adjusted to 1 inch.  The others are actual storms.  The 5-minute QPF values are capped at 0.5" or 6 in/hr.  You should create distributions for storm types for your basin of interest.  To refine QPF start times or eyeballed rain value and which distribution to use, at the bottom of the NWS 7-day forecast is a link for "Hourly Weather Graph". It will show the 6-hr QPF's and what hours Thunder, Rain, Snow, etc. are expected to occur in.

And yes, it does help to know the answer (avg, A, B, C, or D) before you start as a 1" QPF shows here (the correct answer was 3,000 cfs for a 6-hour 1" southwest summer monsoon):

And for the eternal optimist Mr. Hal F. Glassfull (the boss), you can track the trailing storm edge to get the ETA of sunny skies (and when you can expect to get the crew working again).

Storm tracking update... follows the set points and shows actual real-time track location:

I have added some audio 'WAV' files on the full download that you can have some fun with creating your own wav's using Windows Accessories-Entertainment-Sound Recorder and replacing these using the same file names.  If you do not want to hear them played it is ok to delete them... T minus 2 engage systems lift off!!!...

Example of QPF Forecasts and Radar Tracking Nowcasts:

Calibrated 39.3 sqmi urban basin, Birmingham, AL. All times are Pacific Time and will be automatically adjusted from Zulu to your computer time.

These 6-Hour QPF's showed rainfall and so 5-minute values were entered using GetNexrad as:

(Leadtime is 24 hours)

12/09 10PM-4AM PT 0.1"

12/10 4AM-10AM PT 0.5"

12/10 10AM-4PM PT 0.1"

Total-------------0.7"

Actual radar-----0.66"

Not bad so far.

Peak QPF forecast runoff 6-hour:

w/o 6-hr rain distributio>> 120 cfs

w/6-hr rain distribution>>> 230 cfs

Actual USGS peak runoff>>>>1160 cfs

Not so good.

Gage/radar ratio at basin was later shown to be 2.0. with basin adjusted rainfall of 1.25". Will this always be the case?? If so, then 2.0*QPF's will work pretty well.

Storm track Nowcasts: The above 3 basin QPF's were NOT left in the record but should be and then overwritten. The following basin Nowcasts on the N0Q radar were made with no adjustments. And because the storm front was moving at 50 mph, to test a longer Nowcast lead time the first Nowcast was made on the upwind radar DGX Jackson, MS. The Birmingham radar BMX was used after that. If your boundary files are in lat/long then LatLongFromFile.exe will easily produce boundaries for other radars.

Rainfall Wundergage near Basin center was 1.50"

Forecast Radar DGX start @ 8:40pm forecasted time at basin 1:30 am

Time diff 4hrs 50 minutes

Track speed 50mph 0 hour

forecast at 08:40PM PT time rain= 0.00"

1 hour forecast at 09:40PM PT time rain= 0.73" Peak 553cfs @ 05:00AM

2 hour forecast at 10:40PM PT time rain= 0.84" Peak 760cfs @ 05:00AM

3 hour forecast at 11:40PM PT time rain= 0.96" Peak 904cfs @ 05:00AM

4 hour forecast at 12:40AM PT time rain= 1.11" Peak 989cfs @ 07:00AM

5 hour forecast at 01:40AM PT time rain= 1.27" Peak 1330cfs @ 08:00AM

 ---rainfall begins at gage at 2:30am ---

6 hour forecast at 02:40AM PT time rain= 1.37" Peak 1338cfs @ 08:00AM

USGS actual peak flow 1160cfs @ 09:00AM

Forecast Radar BMX start @ 1:05AM forecasted time at basin 2:45AM am

Time diff 1hrs 40 minutes

Track speed 52 mph

0 hour forecast at 01:05AM PT time rain= 0.00"

1 hour forecast at 02:05PM PT time rain= 0.30" Peak 168cfs @ 04:00AM

---rainfall begins at gage at 2:30am ---

2 hour forecast at 03:05PM PT time rain= 0.50" Peak 229cfs @ 04:00AM

3 hour forecast at 04:05PM PT time rain= 0.56" Peak 233cfs @ 04:00AM

4 hour forecast at 05:05PM PT time rain= 0.74" Peak 233cfs @ 05:00AM

5 hour forecast at 06:05PM PT time rain= 0.90" Peak 274cfs @ 05:00AM

6 hour forecast at 07:05PM PT time rain= 1.20" Peak 909cfs @ 9:00AM

7 hour forecast at 08:05PM PT time rain= 1.40" Peak 1360cfs @ 9:00AM

USGS actual peak flow 1160cfs @ 09:00AM

Actual BMX Radar

0 hour forecast at 02:30AM PT time rain= 0.00"

1 hour forecast at 03:30PM PT time rain= 0.16" Peak 86cfs @ 06:00AM

2 hour forecast at 04:30PM PT time rain= 0.23" Peak 107cfs @ 06:00AM

3 hour forecast at 05:30PM PT time rain= 0.28" Peak 111cfs @ 06:00AM

4 hour forecast at 06:30PM PT time rain= 0.40" Peak 111cfs @ 06:00AM

5 hour forecast at 07:30PM PT time rain= 0.55" Peak 133cfs @ 09:00AM

6 hour forecast at 08:30PM PT time rain= 0.62" Peak 143cfs @ 09:00AM

7 hour forecast at 09:30PM PT time rain= 0.64" Peak 143cfs @ 09:00AM

USGS actual peak flow 1160cfs @ 09:00AM

Hourly Gage/Radar ratio adjusted BMX Radar

0 hour forecast at 02:30AM PT time rain= 0.00"

7 hour forecast at 09:30PM PT time rain= 1.25" Peak 769cfs @ 10:00AM

USGS actual peak flow 1160cfs @ 09:00AM

So what gives? The first Nowcast totaled 1.37", 2nd Nowcast 1.40", and the actual comes in at 0.64"??? Why? Storm dissapation? Nowcasting does not work? No, in fact this is no new quirk of our quarry but our old arch enemy... partial beam blockage. If you watch 3 to 4 hours of BMX radar at high speed you will notice a color change radiating out from the radar over Birmingham and that the far edge of radar detection is much closer to the radar inside this radial. So check your radar at your basin location and adjust or subdivide. EVERYTHING about radar requires adjustment and flexibility... this aint your dad's science.

I was attempting to do this in realtime but gave up at 2:00AM so these are reconstructed values. Normally the QPF's would be overwritten by many Nowcasts which would be overwritten as actuall basin radar comes in. GetNexrad knows which is which... which is more than I can say for me after just trying to reconstruct these track times. Seemed pretty simple in realtime.

Besides the 5-six hour QPF periods in xml displayed by GetNexrad, the NWS also provides a breakout of each 6hr period out to 78 hours here: http://www.cnrfc.noaa.gov/hpcqpf.php?duration=00&fill=no

Simple Tracking demo on Youtube video:

Update 9/12/2012:  If you want to change the colors of the radar now you can.  The 4 cells on the Create Overlay menu allow values between -2 to +2 to change the radar's image RGB colors and alpha is transparency 0 to 1.  Try just a -0.5 Green to start.  Transparency helped view Hurricane Issac's relation to to the shore line... changing it's colors will help your inner demons I guess. ;)

Update 4/14/2013:  Storm chasers can use the 'Lat/Long' check box to set your mobile location using an HTML5 geolocation function with your web browser (Chrome, IE9+).  For mobile users this can be quite accurate to within 20 meters,  wifi within 200 meters, much less than a radar pixel of 1 kilometer.  Windows XP will require Google Chrome since IE9 is not compatible with XP.  You can look at my web page source to see how simple this miracle is and note that your location is not stored by me at least... not sure about the helicopter people:  http://getmyrealtime.com/Getlocal.htm

Update 12/9/2013:  If your radar site has boundaries to display on the Boundary List, then you could see 3 new boundary list items at the bottom to select from the list of your sites or 'RadarSite':

'Add another site from above'--will display additional boundaries on your radar screen.

'Show current list values (-1*dsid)'--will take each DSID (datatype_site_id) from the list and look up it's negative value and sum yesterday through now rhour table values (ie -10400 Elk City Wundergage Radar, will look up the hourly values for +10400.). The 2-day sum will be displayed on the radar screen.  Update 2/8/2015:  For actual boundaries, the past 2 rday values are retrieved in this dsid order; -11xxx, 11xxx, and finally -10xxx which is the raw radar for the boundary.  This means 'Show current list values' expects rain gage vaues to be datatype_id 10, raw radar to be -10, and adjusted radar to be -11 or +11. GetNexrad will then display the gaged values at the gages and adjusted radar for the subbasins through now.

'Show GetNexrad_xxx_Gages.txt list'--will look up and sum yesterday and today's 'rday' table values and display them. Replace the 'xxx' with your radar site code. Any DSID will work, not just rainfall.  If the datatype is NOT 10 or 11 (rainfall) then the yesterday and todays's max value in the 'rdaymax' table will be displayed.  Multiple list files can be used like GetNexrad_BMX_Gages.txt, GetNexrad_BMX_GagesAlex.txt, GetNexrad_BMX_GagesElev.txt, GetNexrad_BMX_GagesBob.txt ...etc.

The file GetNexradHDB.txt is needed in the GetNexrad folder but may already exist and has the connection string:

Provider=Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0;Data Source=C:\Program Files (x86)\GetRealtime\GetAccess\GetAccessHDB.mdb;User Id=admin;Password= ;

For metric units include a last line as:  Metric=True

Update 2/20/2022:  Metric can also be selected by clicking the DBZ legend and checking 'Metric' box for Canada radars mm/hr.

GetNexrad_DAX_Gages.txt Example (goes in GetNexrad folder; or use 'Edit Gage Display List'):

DSID, Long, Lat, Optional Color, Opt Plot, Opt ShortID, Opt Display OFF, Opt Display Boundary ON, Opt Frequency ON, Site

10426, -120.101, 37.800, &HFFFF00, plot, Buck1, Buck Meadows Wundergage

10425, -120.132, 37.741, , plot, Coult, OFF, ON, COULTERVILLE, CA

**10428, -120.127, 37.845, Groveland CA

10429, -120.214, 37.859, &HFFFF, , Pine, Pine Mtn Lake, CA

**or along borders using  Top, Bottom, Left, Right

10426, L,1, &HFFFF00, plot, Buck1, Buck Meadows Wundergage

10425, R,1, , plot, Coult, OFF, ON, COULTERVILLE, CA

END

A '*' means skip this station.

A ShortID is 6 letters or less and replaces display of  the DSID for us memory challenged.

A 'plot' will graph yesterday and todays hourly values and display the dsid and max hourly value.

'OFF' for Display will turn off display of site value but will show plot.

'ON' for Display Boundary will draw the basin boundary.

'ON' for Fequency plot if plot on. Either rainfall or flow frequency table.

Some optional color codes:

Red= &HFF

Green= &HFF00

Yellow= &HFFFF

Blue= &HFF0000

Magenta= &HFF00FF

Cyan= &HFFFF00

White= &HFFFFFF

Orange= &H0099FF

Missing data for rainfall and radar is 40 minutes old and others are 240 minutes old and the displayed values will be orange but plots remain the same color.

If you want to align your PLOT's along the edge of the radar disply, then just exagerate either the latitude or longitude (not both) in the setup.  If your lat is 33 then use 23 for bottom align, if long is -88, then us -98 for left align.  The PLOTs can be aligned at the top, bottom, left, or right by exagerating either lat or long.

Easier yet is use "T" for plot top align or "L" for left align like this:

-9301, T, 1, &HFF, plot, Sub1, off, off, off, Sub 1

-9302, T, 2, &HFF, plot, Sub2, off, off, off, Sub 2

-9303, T, 3, &HFF, plot, Sub3, off, off, off, Sub 3

For congested data plots check 'Gage Display as List' to toggle list station data to the screen right and to toggle plot transparency. 

Stream lines can be added to show flow route by creating a boundary file without a point file. You can do this using GetMapArea.exe by loading 'EPA WATERS KMZ' and using a lat/long scale, 'Start Stream Line' and 'End Stream Line' repeatedly for each stream branch and then save when finished. This creates a lat,long file with text between line segments. You can create this lat,long file however you like with a blank line or text between segments. Then using LatLongPixelsFromFile.exe load and convert 'LatLong to Lines'. You must use a Datatype_Site_ID less than 999 to differentiate these stream lines from a real boundary.

Stream lines:

1) must use dsid<999

2) GetMapArea multiple streamline segment file by using begin stream line and end stream line multiple times then right click textbox and save.

3) Load EPA WATERS KMZ for the streamlines to digitize in Lat/Long.

4) Other source lat/long sources use blank line between stream segments.

5) Use LatLongPixelsFrom File.exe, Convert, LatLong to Lines and save as boundary file.

6) Do not create a point file and copy boundary file to GetNexrad radar image folder.

To display with the Show Gage List file GetNexrad_XXX_Gages.txt:

 1, -86.992, 33.443, &HFF00, , Stream, off, on, My streamlines

GetNexrad can now lookup the rainfall frequencies for boundarys and points. The needed rainfall frequency table should be named like this with the radar site id 'GetNexrad_MXX_Rainfall_Frequency.txt'. The format is easy if you use NOAA Atlas 14:

http://hdsc.nws.noaa.gov/hdsc/pfds/pfds_map_cont.html?bkmrk=al

Use the submit button for 'Estimates from the table in csv format:' and open in Excel and save as tab delimited text file as shown here:

The hourly values values are looked up but the reason you may want to include the above rainfall depths below 60 minutes is because the last hourly value will be dated as the last available value. So the availbe minutes in the last hour will be rounded per the table above and looked up, other wise 60 minutes is allways used even if the last hour only had 5 minutes.

Update 3/1/2014:  You can compute the frequencies and depths of your radar loop for each duration in your frequency table using the 'Click Me DBZ' to open the radar dbz to rainfall form and checking 'Rainfall Frequencies' as shown below.  You can also use your GetAccess HDB hourly radar adjustment ratios to adjust the dbz to rainfall conversion.  When you save the GetNexrad setup the DSID will be saved also.  You can click on any point or select a boundary for your frequencies.

Update 12/5/2013:  GetNexrad 4.1.1 can 'Save' the radar image to PNG file or the whole GetNexrad window form.  The saved PNG image file can also be FTP'd to your website. If in a radar loop, then the PNG file will be created each time the loop is updated with a new radar image and then FTP'd automatically if desired. You could have GetGraphs include the PNG file on your hard drive as one of it's 'Web pages' for display. For Windows 10 you may need to change security settings Allow App Through Firewall.

The 2 PNG images are:

GetNexrad_image.png --just the radar screen.

GetNexrad_window.png --the whole GetNexrad window form.

To show this form select the checkbox 'Save' on the main menu, not the 'Save Setup' button.

Batch Mode:  Update 5/15/2014:  GetNexrad.exe can be ran in batch mode with the command lines:

GetNexrad.exe -1 ...load default and save image to png file.

GetNexrad.exe -2 ...load default and save window to png file.

To FTP to your GetNexrad ftp setup include your password:

GetNexrad.exe -2 mypassword ...load default and save window to png file and FTP it.

If shelling form GetRealtime, then the GetRealtime_setup.txt line could be:

SHELL-C:\Program Files\GetRealtime\GetNexrad\GetNexrad.exe -2; 0; Picture; Nashville Nexrad; -1

To use different GetNexrad setup files and ftp it:

SHELL-C:\GetProjects\GetIIDarea\GetNexrad\GetNexrad.exe -2 GetNexradFilesSouth24hrQPF.txt MyPassword; 0; Picture; Nexrad Picture to Web; 0

Use the -1 in base1 to show the window to capture.  Use 0 or blank if option -1 save image and you do not want to show GetNexrad.  You could then add the png file to your GetGraphs setup list.  To SHELL dos commands like COPY in GetRealtime.exe you must put them in a BAT file.

Update:  One final thought.  Try to resave your setup with each new version of GetNexrad.exe to keep confusion do a minimum.

Coordinating GetNexrad and GetRealtime Setups:

A typical folder setup would be:

C:\MyProjs\Project1\GetAccess

C:\MyProjs\Project1\GetGraphs

C:\MyProjs\Project1\GetRealtime

C:\MyProjs\Project1\GetNexrad

For a second project:

C:\MyProjs\Project2\GetAccess

C:\MyProjs\Project2\GetGraphs

C:\MyProjs\Project2\GetRealtime

C:\MyProjs\Project2\GetNexrad

Just create the folders and copy all the files. Once GetRealtime and GetNexrad hav been installed you can copy any of the files as needed with out re-installing. GetNexrad should then select a radar image from the GetRealtime folder where the boundary and point files will also be and 'Save Setup'.  Updates require only downloading the new exe file and replacing the old exe file.

Multiple Setup Files:  Update 1/5/2021 now you can setup radar selections and surface obs and save to GetNexradFilesxxxxxx.txt and then reload GetNexrad from a command line with the new setup flilename.   A simple example would be to include a radar image of the whole USA with upadated radar, NWS flood sites, and QPF rings automatically.

A new command lines could be:  

GetNexrade.exe -2 GetNexradFiles33.txt mypassword (update USA radar and surface ops and ftp)  

or

GetNexrade.exe GetNexradFiles33.txt (run GetNexrad and automatically update radar and surface ops)  

 old way:

GetNexrade.exe -2 mypassword (use old default GetNexradFiles.txt and ftp)  

You can use GetRealtime.exe to Shell or create desktop links with the command line.

Display All Canadian Radars:   Update 2/19/2022 to view map of Canada and toggle display all the radar sites download these 3 files and...

Put this png in your radar image directory:

CAN_N0Q.png

Put these two in your GetNexrad.exe directory:

RadarSites.txt

CAN_N0Q.pgw

Now you can select the CAN_N0Q.png or use the New Site, Update file list:

 US CAN Canada Radars

You can DOUBLE-CLICK on the radar site you wish to get the latest image for. These files are already in included in the latest full setup download.

As of July 2024 only Constant Altitude Plan Position Indicator (CAPPI) rain and snow are now available from the Canada radars.

Attention NASCAR racing fans....

Gentlemen (and you too Larry McReynolds) start your radars!!!

 
When rain is in the area, would you like to try to out guess Larry and the other crew chiefs on when to pit, when to stay out, or if the day will be a rain out?  Well now you can.  Your free GetNexrad download comes with setups for all 36 races on the NASCAR Cup Series schedule.  So reach up there and turn on that radar loop one more time cause we're getting ready to go racing!!!  Or as DW says, "Boogity, Boogity, Boogity, hey ho, let's go..." or something to that effect.

After installing the NASCAR overlay files as described below, for each race fire up GetNexrad.exe and press 'Select Radar Gif Image' and select the gif file in the

C:\Program Files\GetNexrad\NascarRadarGifs\

folder from the list below, then right click the radar image and press 'Get Radars' to update the image or loops.  Remember... it's RIGHT CLICK THE IMAGE!!!.... dont be as stubborn as some crew chiefs like Larry and his front tire changer that can't remember righty tighty, lefty loosey.  And one more thing, be sure to empty your Recycle Bin often or Larry will not be pleased and you'll be sweeping out the shop.

I almost forgot to tell you how to estimate time of arrival (ETA) for rain cells on the radar arriving at the race track.  If you have an auto updating radar loop going then you can click on loop 'Stepping'.  With both 'Lat/Long' and 'Miles' unchecked back step to the beginning of the loop.  Left click a rain cell moving toward the track.  Then step forward to the end of the loop and click on the new rain cell position.  The text in the upper left of the screen will display the miles away to the current rain cell location and the ETA of its arrival at the track.  You can use a 5 minute step, but the longer the time period between first and last step the more accurate the ETA will probably be.  (See newer examples and video above Larry's head.)  There is an art to determining what rain cells and what location and what loop steps to select.  Hey, I didn't say you would out guess Larry, but now you have a better chance.

Nearest Radar for NASCAR Races:

(note:  N0R & N0Q have been discontinued, use N0B images