GEMPAK

[Brett Adair]

Looking for some info. I believe that I have saw on here before that someone does installs for a price. If so, who and how much. Also wanting to see about making it available online. I use FxNET but it may be going down the tube soon and I need a great backup. Thanks.

 

[Pat Lawrence]

http://sky.radioweather.us/gempak.html

I think this may be the info you are looking for.

Pat

 

[Andrew Khan]

I think GEMPAK is for the Linux OS, and I do know someone will come out to set it up, or you can yourself...good luck though. I'm trying to figure out how much the GEMPAK software is....I bet they would cost me a fortune to come out to this small town in TN, big cities will be easier.

 

[nickgrillo]

GEMPAK is a great tool for analysis... However, unless you have a very good understand on Linux systems - then you likely will not have success installing it yourself.

Rob Dale is a professional meteorologist from Lansing (and fellow STer) and he will install GEMPAK (or linux too, if needed) on your computer for you. You'd have to send him your computer, and he will install it... It only costed me around $475 to have both Linux and GEMPAK installed on my Windows XP system.

I'm pretty sure his link is provided above...

 

[mikedeason]

Looking for some info. I believe that I have saw on here before that someone does installs for a price. If so, who and how much. Also wanting to see about making it available online. I use FxNET but it may be going down the tube soon and I need a great backup. Thanks.

If you know little to nothing about Unix/Linux, then Rob Dale is the man to talk to about getting GEMPAK set up on your computer. I'm sure he can give you more details.

If you are somewhat familiar with Unix and are comfortable with scripting, then you can download the binaries and/or source for free from Unidata's site (http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/software/gempak/) and install and configure it yourself. You will have to register with Unidata. But unlike other met packages like WXP and McIDAS, you can get the GEMPAK package with no strings attached.

And if you do get GEMPAK up and running, I can assure you it will be your primary source for meteorological analysis, diagnostic and prognostication information and not a backup.

Regards,

Mike

 

[Andrew Khan]

GEMPAK is a great tool for analysis... However, unless you have a very good understand on Linux systems - then you likely will not have success installing it yourself.

Rob Dale is a professional meteorologist from Lansing (and fellow STer) and he will install GEMPAK (or linux too, if needed) on your computer for you. You'd have to send him your computer, and he will install it... It only costed me around $475 to have both Linux and GEMPAK installed on my Windows XP system.

I'm pretty sure his link is provided above...

How can you have two operating systems on one hard-drive, you must have partitioned it, but I still don't think that you can (at least mine). I am familiar with Linux (Especially Unix) I used it for over 3 years back in 2001. You can easily find a guide on installing GEMPAK software, as well as the Linux OS online, I assume.

 

[nickgrillo]

GEMPAK is a great tool for analysis... However, unless you have a very good understand on Linux systems - then you likely will not have success installing it yourself.

Rob Dale is a professional meteorologist from Lansing (and fellow STer) and he will install GEMPAK (or linux too, if needed) on your computer for you. You'd have to send him your computer, and he will install it... It only costed me around $475 to have both Linux and GEMPAK installed on my Windows XP system.

I'm pretty sure his link is provided above...

How can you have two operating systems on one hard-drive, you must have partitioned it, but I still don't think that you can (at least mine). I am familiar with Linux (Especially Unix) I used it for over 3 years back in 2001. You can easily find a guide on installing GEMPAK software, as well as the Linux OS online, I assume.

Yeah, I imagine you could have partitioned the system (Windows / Linix) but I didn't - and I had Rob just wipe away everything, and install Unix on it.

It could be just me, but Linux can be a pretty darn complicated system... And if you haven't had a few years expierence with it (and know about installing such softwares) - then you won't have much luck installing GEMPAK yourself. So, instead of pulling all of my hair out - I decided to send my machine to Rob, and had him professionally install it.

His scripts are very powerful, and is well worth every penny...

 

[Andrew Khan]

Oh, so Rob doesn't manually install GEMPAK, he uses automated scripts? That's really awsome, saves a lot of work. Yes Linux can be pretty complicated trust me...I fiddled with that Operating System for about a year, until I leanred everything about it, all the tools of the trade....that's how complicated it is, it's best to stay away from it, unless your going to be using GEMPAK, to bad the GEMPAK isn't for windows, for people who don't want to fool with all the installing. Installing Linux is pretty tough, especially since it's open source, and doesn't have to much help...it requires a lot of batch coding, just to run the installation..not nearly as simple as Windows, lol. I'm sure it was a good idea to send it to Rob, I bet it was worth every penny. Nick, do you need internet, or does it get it from somewhere like XM/Mobile threat net? But, I guess you'll need an extra laptop, for other programs, like GRLevel3, and the like, I would get an extra one. Does GEMPAK have streaming Radar feeds, similair to NEXRAD?

 

[Brett Adair]

Looking for some info. I believe that I have saw on here before that someone does installs for a price. If so, who and how much. Also wanting to see about making it available online. I use FxNET but it may be going down the tube soon and I need a great backup. Thanks.

If you know little to nothing about Unix/Linux, then Rob Dale is the man to talk to about getting GEMPAK set up on your computer. I'm sure he can give you more details.

If you are somewhat familiar with Unix and are comfortable with scripting, then you can download the binaries and/or source for free from Unidata's site (http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/software/gempak/) and install and configure it yourself. You will have to register with Unidata. But unlike other met packages like WXP and McIDAS, you can get the GEMPAK package with no strings attached.

And if you do get GEMPAK up and running, I can assure you it will be your primary source for meteorological analysis, diagnostic and prognostication information and not a backup.

Regards,

Mike

Can you get McIDAS and WXP installed with GEMPAK as well? There stuff looks pretty good to. What all can GEMPAK do? Model analysis and mesoscale? Please enlighten me as I would like to learn as much as possible about it before purchasing.

 

[nickgrillo]

Looking for some info. I believe that I have saw on here before that someone does installs for a price. If so, who and how much. Also wanting to see about making it available online. I use FxNET but it may be going down the tube soon and I need a great backup. Thanks.

If you know little to nothing about Unix/Linux, then Rob Dale is the man to talk to about getting GEMPAK set up on your computer. I'm sure he can give you more details.

If you are somewhat familiar with Unix and are comfortable with scripting, then you can download the binaries and/or source for free from Unidata's site (http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/software/gempak/) and install and configure it yourself. You will have to register with Unidata. But unlike other met packages like WXP and McIDAS, you can get the GEMPAK package with no strings attached.

And if you do get GEMPAK up and running, I can assure you it will be your primary source for meteorological analysis, diagnostic and prognostication information and not a backup.

Regards,

Mike

Can you get McIDAS and WXP installed with GEMPAK as well? There stuff looks pretty good to. What all can GEMPAK do? Model analysis and mesoscale? Please enlighten me as I would like to learn as much as possible about it before purchasing.

GEMPAK is pretty much all you'd need... It can bring you all model output data (NAM, RUC, GFS, etc.) along with impressive SAT images. It's also the only type of software that will let you overlay data (i.e. VIS imagery/surface obs) - you could also get all types of soundings through it, AND you can modify them to your needs

 

[Brett Adair]

Looking for some info. I believe that I have saw on here before that someone does installs for a price. If so, who and how much. Also wanting to see about making it available online. I use FxNET but it may be going down the tube soon and I need a great backup. Thanks.

If you know little to nothing about Unix/Linux, then Rob Dale is the man to talk to about getting GEMPAK set up on your computer. I'm sure he can give you more details.

If you are somewhat familiar with Unix and are comfortable with scripting, then you can download the binaries and/or source for free from Unidata's site (http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/software/gempak/) and install and configure it yourself. You will have to register with Unidata. But unlike other met packages like WXP and McIDAS, you can get the GEMPAK package with no strings attached.

And if you do get GEMPAK up and running, I can assure you it will be your primary source for meteorological analysis, diagnostic and prognostication information and not a backup.

Regards,

Mike

Can you get McIDAS and WXP installed with GEMPAK as well? There stuff looks pretty good to. What all can GEMPAK do? Model analysis and mesoscale? Please enlighten me as I would like to learn as much as possible about it before purchasing.

GEMPAK is pretty much all you'd need... It can bring you all model output data (NAM, RUC, GFS, etc.) along with impressive SAT images. It's also the only type of software that will let you overlay data (i.e. VIS imagery/surface obs) - you could also get all types of soundings through it, AND you can modify them to your needs

Sweet! Where does the data feed come from?

 

[Robert Dewey]

Sweet! Where does the data feed come from?

The majority of the money you pay Rob Dale is for the scripts he wrote to collect all data via FTP - You MUST have those scripts, or GEMPAK is useless, and Rob Dale is the only place you can get them. I wrote my own custom scripts in c-shell, some of which are to the tune of 500 lines long - in total, they took me almost a year to build and tune. The problem is, my scripts are custom to my layout, so they wouldn't work for anyone else.

Also, as Nick said - GEMPAK is all you need. McIDAS is essentially a satellite viewer, and is vary limited in it's functions. I managed to get it for free from Unidata, as I pulled some strings and gave myself "connections" so to speak.

Anyway, most of my data now comes directly through NOAAport via IP delivery, including several experimental datasets (L2, etc.), all of which took some "string pulling" to get access to...

 

[Andrew Khan]

So Rob, everyone that gets GEMPAK has to essentially send theres/buy the scripts from Rdale? I would have thought there were other scripts, besides his.

 

[Robert Dewey]

So Rob, everyone that gets GEMPAK has to essentially send theres/buy the scripts from Rdale? I would have thought there were other scripts, besides his.

Pretty much. GEMPAK is a pretty niche market - not that many people want to use it besides universities and hardcore weather freaks. The general rule of thumb is; if you want data for it, you're gonna either have to A) be a university and get NOAAport, or B) build your own scripts.

 

[rdale]

Sorry I'm late to the party ;> Everyone seems to have covered my bases well. The scripts I sell are ones that I've refined over the years. The raw data is out there, but it's on a myriad of servers throughout the country and most times the data needs to be reformatted before GEMPAK can start crunching it. So if you think you can find all those sources and get it into a readable format - you don't need me. Hope you've got some free time ;>

I'll also walk people through the initial running of GEMPAK, give them shortcuts I've discovered, help out with unlimited questions (via email), handle updates, etc.

You send me your PC, I'll send it back about 2 weeks later and it's ready to run - you don't need to know squat about Linux if all you want to do is run GEMPAK.

- Rob