Hi Folks. I have just 'finished' a casual couple of months worth of programming building a new RADAR engine for Oz Forecast and wanted to tell somebody about it.. since my wife isn't nearly sufficiently excited enough! :-)
Our OzF server now downloads every RADAR image generated by the BOM (under formal licence) and renders them onto a massive map of Australia in memory. All the images are overlayed in an 'optimal' fashion, which preserves the full resolution of 64km, 128km, etc, BOM images while also utilising the full coverage out to 512km. I have presently opted to ignore the very lowest reflectivity category in 512km images, because it is way to noisy, as you would have observed on RADAR composites elsewhere.
Not only does the new composite RADAR code have the benefit that, eg, the image for Moree incorporates overlapping data from Warrego, Grafton, Newcastle to fill in poor coverage areas, but it also enables me to generate composite RADAR images centred on any location (assuming it has some kind of coverage from the BOM of course).
This is really useful for locations which sit on the periphery of two or more RADAR sites, eg,
Port Macquarie or
Moulamein. I am currently generating 30 such composites which are not centred on a BOM RADAR location (and can do more if you notice somewhere that it would be useful).
It can do composites of any size area, for instance
NE NSW/SE QLD or
Australia.
Thanks for reading. I'm keen to hear any suggestions if you have any. It ain't perfect yet but it is much nicer than my original implementation!
Cheers,
Dave
