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Radar Data

As part of the Missouri Transect project, a new Doppler weather radar was installed at the University of Missouri's South Farm Research Center in July 2015. More details about the new radar are covered in the research highlight, Closing a Radar Gap.

Download data

Radar images and data from last six hours

The latest radar images and six hours of radar data are hosted on the University of Missouri Atmospheric Science Program's web site. The radar data files are volume scans (a series of sweeps at varying elevations) and can be downloaded and viewed in GR2Analyst. All of the filenames are timestamped with the collection date and time (UTC, format: YYYYMMDD_HHMMSS). Radar images on this site are updated every five minutes.

» Visit their web site here: University of Missouri Dual-Pol Doppler Radar (MZZU).

Radar data from last three days

Radar data from the last three days is stored on The Iowa Environmental Mesonet (IEM)'s web site. This data is in Sigmet format and can be viewed in GR2Analyst. All of the filenames are timestamped with the collection date and time (UTC, format: YYYYMMDD_HHMM).

» Download these radar data files here: Index of /level2/raw/MZZU/

Radar data archive

All of the radar data collected to date is archived on the Missouri EPSCoR research server. There are two archives:

1. Radar Images: Radar images in JPG format, generated every five minutes, dating back to late October 2015. Files are organized by product type and then by date (UTC). Products are:

  • dbz: Base Reflectivity
  • dbz_cor: Corrected Base Reflectivity
  • kdp: Specific Differential Phase
  • rhohv: Correlation Coefficient
  • vel: Radial Velocity
  • vel_cor: Corrected Radial Velocity
  • zdr: Differential Reflectivity

All of the image filenames are timestamped with the collection date+time (UTC, format: YYMMDD_HHMMSS). The product type and collection date+time (UTC and Central) are also displayed at the top of each image.

2. Raw data: This archive contains all files older than 24 hours and dates back to the beginning of July 2015. Files are organized by date (UTC) and then product type:

  • MAX: Max reflectivity
  • PPI: Plan Position Indicator, the most common format of radar display
  • RAW: Raw radar data files, single sweeps
  • RN1: Rain1, Hourly rainfall estimate
  • RNN: RainN, 3-Hour rainfall totals
  • SHE: Shear, an estimate of wind shear
  • TOP: Height estimate of the top of the radar data
  • TRA: Track, information about the movement of a storm
  • VIL: Volume integrated liquid
  • VVP: Velocity Volume Processing, an estimation of the full velocity field, calculated from the radial velocity (see WND, below)
  • WND: Wind, information about the radial wind field (what you would typically see on a 2d radar image of velocity; the radar can only directly tell you what the wind speed is along a radial pointed toward or away from the radar)
  • WRN: Warnings

These files have been compressed with gzip. All of the filenames are timestamped with the collection date and time (UTC, format: YYMMDDHHMMSS).

» View the radar image archive here: radar.missouriepscor.org/data