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DOCUMENTATION

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GPM Ground Validation NEXRAD MC3E (KGLD, KICT, KINX, KTLX, KTWX, KVNX)

Table of Contents

Introduction
Citation
Campaign
Instrument Description		 File Naming Convention
Data Format
References
Contact Information

Introduction

The GPM Ground Validation NEXRAD MC3E datasets were collected from six radar sites from April 22, 2011 to June 6, 2011 for the Midlatitude Continental Convective Clouds Experiment (MC3E) which took place in central Oklahoma. Radar sites include: KGLD, KICT, KINX, KTLX, KTWX, and KVNX. The Next Generation Weather Radar (NEXRAD) system comprises 160 Weather Surveillance Radar-1988 Doppler (WSR-88D) sites throughout the United States and select overseas locations. The resulting data includes the base data, called Level-II, and the derived products, called Level-III. This dataset includes Level-II data which contains three meteorological base data quantities: reflectivity, mean radial velocity, and spectrum width. The GPM Ground Validation NEXRAD MC3E data files are available as tarred binary files.

Citation

The following example shows how to cite the use of this dataset in a publication. For more information, please see our Citing GHRC DAAC and Data page.

GPM Ground Validation NEXRAD KGLD MC3E [indicate subset used]. Data set available online [http://ghrc.nsstc.nasa.gov/] from the NASA EOSDIS Global Hydrology Resource Center Distributed Active Archive Center Huntsville, Alabama, U.S.A. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.5067/MC3E/NEXRAD/DATA206

GPM Ground Validation NEXRAD KICT MC3E [indicate subset used]. Data set available online [http://ghrc.nsstc.nasa.gov/] from the NASA EOSDIS Global Hydrology Resource Center Distributed Active Archive Center Huntsville, Alabama, U.S.A. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.5067/MC3E/NEXRAD/DATA201

GPM Ground Validation NEXRAD KINX MC3E [indicate subset used]. Data set available online [http://ghrc.nsstc.nasa.gov/] from the NASA EOSDIS Global Hydrology Resource Center Distributed Active Archive Center Huntsville, Alabama, U.S.A. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.5067/MC3E/NEXRAD/DATA204

GPM Ground Validation NEXRAD KTLX MC3E [indicate subset used]. Data set available online [http://ghrc.nsstc.nasa.gov/] from the NASA EOSDIS Global Hydrology Resource Center Distributed Active Archive Center Huntsville, Alabama, U.S.A. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.5067/MC3E/NEXRAD/DATA203

GPM Ground Validation NEXRAD KTWX MC3E [indicate subset used]. Data set available online [http://ghrc.nsstc.nasa.gov/] from the NASA EOSDIS Global Hydrology Resource Center Distributed Active Archive Center Huntsville, Alabama, U.S.A. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.5067/MC3E/NEXRAD/DATA205

GPM Ground Validation NEXRAD KVNX MC3E [indicate subset used]. Data set available online [http://ghrc.nsstc.nasa.gov/] from the NASA EOSDIS Global Hydrology Resource Center Distributed Active Archive Center Huntsville, Alabama, U.S.A. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.5067/MC3E/NEXRAD/DATA202

Campaign

The Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission Ground Validation (GV) campaign used a variety of methods for validation of GPM satellite constellation measurements prior to launch of the GPM Core Satellite, which launched on February 27th, 2014. The validation effort included numerous GPM-specific and joint-agency/international external field campaigns, using state of the art cloud and precipitation observational infrastructure (polarimetric radars, profilers, rain gauges, disdrometers). Surface rainfall was measured by very dense rain gauge and disdrometer networks at various field campaign sites. These field campaigns accounted for the majority of the effort and resources expended by Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission Ground Validation (GV). More information about the GPM mission is available here http://pmm.nasa.gov/GPM.

The Midlatitude Continental Convective Clouds Experiment (MC3E) took place in central Oklahoma during the April�June 2011 period. The experiment was a collaborative effort between the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Climate Research Facility and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission Ground Validation (GV) program. The field campaign leveraged the unprecedented observing infrastructure currently available in the central United States, combined with an extensive sounding array, remote sensing and in situ aircraft observations, NASA GPM ground validation remote sensors, and new ARM instrumentation purchased with American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funding. The overarching goal was to provide the most complete characterization of convective cloud systems, precipitation, and the environment that has ever been obtained, providing constraints for model cumulus parameterizations and space-based rainfall retrieval algorithms over land that had never before been available. More information about the MC3E campaign is available here http://pmm.nasa.gov/node/301 and here http://campaign.arm.gov/mc3e/.

Data from six NEXRAD locations are included in the dataset:

KGLD - Goodland, Kansas
LATITUDE: 39.367, LONGITUDE: -101.7
Bounding Box Coordinates:
N: 43.503889, S: 35.23, E: -096.355278, W: -107.044722

KICT - Wichita, Kansas
LATITUDE: 37.655, LONGITUDE: -97.443
Bounding Box Coordinates:
N: 41.791944, S: 33.518056, E: -92.223056, W: -102.662778

KINX - Tulsa, Oklahoma
LATITUDE: 36.175, LONGITUDE: -95.565
Bounding Box Coordinates:
N: 40.311944, S: 32.038056, E: -90.445, W: -100.685

KTLX - Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
LATITUDE: 35.333, LONGITUDE: -97.278
Bounding Box Coordinates:
N: 39.47, S: 31.196111, E: -92.211389, W: -102.344444

KTWX - Topeka, Kansas
LATITUDE: 38.997, LONGITUDE: -96.233
Bounding Box Coordinates:
N: 43.133889, S: 34.86, E: -90.916111, W: -101.55

KVNX - Vance Air Force Base, Oklahoma
LATITUDE: 36.741, LONGITUDE: -98.128
Bounding Box Coordinates:
N: 40.877778, S: 32.604167, E: -92.970556, W: -103.285556

Instrument Description

NEXRAD is a pulsed Doppler weather radar used to detect and indirectly measure meteorological and hydrological phenomena. There are currently 160 radars positioned throughout the United States and in selected regions around the world. The radars are constantly scanning a few hundred kilometers around each site. The main purpose of NEXRAD is to provide real-time measurements of winds and precipitation, thus improving weather forecasting, specifically the prediction of severe weather events. The transmitter, receiver, and antenna are contained within the radar data acquisition (RDA) component of the system. The RDA derives three parameters, reflectivity, radial velocity, and Doppler spectrum width. Range resolution of the WSR-88D is 1 km for reflectivity and .25 km for velocity and spectrum width; azimuthal resolution is 1 degree for reflectivity, velocity and spectrum width.

More information about NEXRAD II data is available on the NOAA website https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/ and in the journal article A Review of NEXRAD Level II by Huber and Trapp (2009).

File Naming Convention

The GPM Ground Validation NEXRAD MC3E datasets are organized by radar name.

Each dataset contains data files with the following naming convention:

mc3e_RdNm_YYYYMMDDHH.tar

Each tar file contains gzipped files with the following naming convention:

RdNmYYYYMMDD_HHMMSS_V03.gz

The gz file contains a file named with the following convention:

RdNmYYYYMMDD_HHMMSS_V03

Each dataset also contains browse image files with the following naming convention:

mc3e_RdNm_YYYYMMDDHH_brws.tar

Each tar file contains PNG image files with the following naming convention:

YYYY-MM-DD_HH-MM-SS_RdNm_<file description>.png

Where,

mc3e = Midlatitude Continental Convective Clouds Experiment
RdNm = Radar Name (KGLD, KICT, KINX, KTLX, KTWX, or KVNX)
YYYYMMDDHH = year, month, day, and hour of the data
YYYYMMDD = year, month, and day of the data
HHMMSS = hours, minutes, seconds (in UTC) of the data
<file description> = describes data in the file (e.g., composite)
.tar = archive file type; will need to be extracted
.gz = gzipped file; will need to be extracted
.png = image file type

Data Format

The GPM Ground Validation NEXRAD MC3E datasets include data files and browse image files. Data files are in binary file format; browse images are in PNG file format.

It should be noted that some data files were not include in the NCDC order, and it is presumed they are unavailable.

KICT - For the period 2011-04-22 to 201-06-06, this directory is missing: KICT2011050414.tar (1 file)
KINX - For the period 2011-04-22 to 2011-06-06, this directory is missing: KINX2011050402.tar through KINX2011050411.tar, KINX2011060214.tar, KINX2011060218.tar, and KINX2011060219.tar (13 files total)
KVNX - For the period 2011-04-22 to 2011-06-06, this directory is missing: KVNX2011051308.tar through KVNX2011051309.tar, KVNX2011052614.tar, and KVNX2011060213.tar through KVNX2011060215.tar (6 files total)

References

Huber, M., and Trapp, J, 2009: A Review of NEXRAD Level II: Data, Distribution, and Applications. Journal of Terrestrial Observation, 1, 5 - 15.

NEXRAD. NOAA website. https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/data-access/radar-data/nexrad.

Contact Information

To order these data or for further information, please contact:

Global Hydrology Resource Center
User Services
320 Sparkman Drive
Huntsville, AL 35805
Phone: 256-961-7932
E-mail: support-ghrc@earthdata.nasa.gov
Web: http://ghrc.nsstc.nasa.gov/

 

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