GR Software...need opinions

[Anthony Silver]

I'm looking to add GRLevel II or III, and I was wondering which is better. Any opinions or recommendations?

Thanks

 

[Dustin Wilcox]

What do you want it for? If for chasing, with out a doubt III if for analysis II. If still unclear get the trial version and use each and determine which suits your need better.

 

[Anthony Silver]

Thanks Dustin-and yes, I intend on using it for chasing. Normally I use SwiftWX, but for some reason it won't load on the new laptop. I'm seriously looking at III, but I wanted to get some opinions before making a final decision.

 

[Van DeWald]

Level III base reflectivity files are about 30-50K (or so), whereas Level II files are 1 to 5 megs, per volume scan. While there are some areas with broadband speed out in the field while chasing (using an aircard, or tethering your phone), it's spotty. Just assume you'd be getting dialup speeds, or a little faster, while in the field. Thus, because of the large bandwidth required for the L2 files, it's best to go with L3 for chasing in my opinion.

Van

 

[Anthony Silver]

Level III base reflectivity files are about 30-50K (or so), whereas Level II files are 1 to 5 megs, per volume scan. While there are some areas with broadband speed out in the field while chasing (using an aircard, or tethering your phone), it's spotty. Just assume you'd be getting dialup speeds, or a little faster, while in the field. Thus, because of the large bandwidth required for the L2 files, it's best to go with L3 for chasing in my opinion.

Van

Yeah...the Internet card I use through Sprint is not that much faster than dialup. I'll probably install the trial version of III as Dustin suggested and see how everything pans out.

Thanks again!

 

[D. Hayes]

I run both GRL2 and 3. I like GRL2 better as it downloads more often from what my limited experiance as shown. For example last week when we had those big rains coming through. I was running both programs on my desktop. The time for updates on GRL3 was like 10 minutes, where GRL2 was 2 minutes. Both were getting feeds from allisonhouse with the same placefiles in use. Both were on the same radar sites as well. I do agree 3 downloads faster but I don't really want to be out there waiting 10 minutes for a radar update. Now that's just over 1 day so it might be totally different on other sites and times.

SwiftWX although good at home sucks bandwidth like a monkey on a bannana. Plus it's a terrible memory/cpu hog. I tried it for a month and gave up on it. Even on my decked out desktop with cable modem it ran pretty sad.

Wait for the weather to get interesting then install all 3 GR programs. Have a field day and see which works best with your setup.

 

[Anthony Silver]

SwiftWX although good at home sucks bandwidth like a monkey on a bannana. Plus it's a terrible memory/cpu hog. I tried it for a month and gave up on it. Even on my decked out desktop with cable modem it ran pretty sad.

This is true! I made the mistake of trying to run Swift on my old laptop which was only 127mb RAM-big no-no! Talk about a major lock-up! That program is definitely better suited for a home PC as opposed to a laptop, unless you have tons of RAM to play around with.

As far as the GR software goes, I went ahead and installed version III. It seems to be just what I'm looking for. Another one that caught my eye was GRLevelX. That 3-D storm viewer would actually be quite useful!

 

[rdale]

I run both GRL2 and 3. I like GRL2 better as it downloads more often from what my limited experiance as shown. For example last week when we had those big rains coming through. I was running both programs on my desktop. The time for updates on GRL3 was like 10 minutes, where GRL2 was 2 minutes. Both were getting feeds from allisonhouse with the same placefiles in use. Both were on the same radar sites as well.

You misinterpreted the timer... The data is updated at the same interval. It's just that the GR2 timer is showing you when it will check for the next tilt(s) of data. GR3 only checks when the next image you are looking at will be updated. So you aren't getting the data any faster with Level II vs Level III.

 

[D. Hayes]

ok that makes sense. There alone would be a convincer to go with GRL3 for ultra fast mobile.

One good thing is at least the price of GRL2 can be subtracted from GR2A. Wheee! I love that volume explorer!

 

[Jeff Snyder]

As far as the GR software goes, I went ahead and installed version III. It seems to be just what I'm looking for. Another one that caught my eye was GRLevelX. That 3-D storm viewer would actually be quite useful!

Just for clarification... GRLevelX is the "generic" name for the GR progams. Here are the current offerings:

GRLevel3 -- Level 3 radar data viewer
GRLevel2 -- Level 2 radar data viewer
GRLevel2 Analyst -- The "flagship" GR program that displays volumetric Level 2 data is isosurface or translucent shading modes.

For the same volume scan, the Level II data files are significant larger, which is something to consider when you're on a cell connection while on the road. This will be doubly true once most of the radar sites start feeding super-resolution data. Just a reminder:

Level 3 data - 4 elevation angles (usually 0.5, 1.5, 2.5, and 3.5), radar reflectivity resolution of 1 deg x 1 km x 5 dBz (so it can only show 30 dbz, 35 dBz, 40 dBz, etc), and velocity resolution of 1 deg x 1 km x 5 kts. All derived products are available (VIL, storm-relative velocity, echo tops, etc).

Level 2 data -- all available elevation angles (0.5 to ~19 degrees, IIRC), radar reflectivity resolution of 1 deg x 1 km x 0.5 dBz, and velocity resolution of 1 deg x 0.25 km x 1 kt. The only products available from the data are radar reflectivity, Doppler velocity, and spectrum width. GR2 and GR2AE also have several algorithms for products such as max estimate hail size and rotation.

Note that, as noted in the thread on Super-resolution in W&C, 88D sites are being upgraded to provide enhanced resolution. If you own GR2 or GR2AE, you will be able to take advantage of these data -- reflectivity and velocity spatial resolution of 0.5 x 0.25 km. These files are 2-3 times larger than the regular Level 2 data files, so it likely will be practically impossible to use super-res data on anything but a fast broadband connection.

For completeness, I should note that there are Level 1 data, but you most likely don't want to deal with those... The files are very large, they consist solely of the digital in-phase and quadrature components of the received signal, and you can't really get the files off the web. That said, you can do a lot of nifty things with these I(t) and Q(t) raw data, such as doing your own signal processing (to create periodograms, seek out the tornado spectral signature, etc).