Unidata AWIPS (formerly AWIPS II) is a meteorological display and analysis package originally developed by the National Weather Service and Raytheon, repackaged by Unidata to support non-operational use in research and education by UCAR member institutions.
AWIPS takes a unified approach to data ingest, and most data types follow a path through the system starting with an LDM client requesting data from the Unidata IDD. These data files are then decoded and stored as HDF5 and Postgres metadata by EDEX.
Unidata supports two visualization frameworks for rendering AWIPS data: CAVE, and the Python Data Access Framework (python-awips).
Mac OS X | awips2-cave-16.2.2.dmg | |
CentOS/RH 6 or 7 (x86_64) | installCAVE.sh | Run from the command line
chmod 755 installCAVE.sh
|
Windows 32-bit | awips-cave.msi | |
Windows 64-bit | awips-cave.amd64.msi |
CentOS/RH 6 or 7 (x86_64) | installEDEX.sh | Run from the command line
chmod 755 installEDEX.sh && ./installEDEX.sh |
Unidata and Microsoft have partnered to offer a EDEX data server in the Azure cloud, open to the Unidata university community and the public. Select the server in the Connectivity Preferences dialog, or enter edex-cloud.unidata.ucar.edu
(without adding http:// before, or :9581/services after).
Note: Unidata does not support the operational NWS version of AWIPS. It is recommended that only Unidata AWIPS clients connect to Unidata AWIPS servers. Using a NWS client with a Unidata server will result in errors.
AWIPS_II_Installation.pdf | 88 pp | 349K | Aug 12, 2013 |
CAVE_D2D_Manual.pdf | 612 pp | 11M | Aug 12, 2013 |
Software_System_Design.pdf | 156 pp | 2.9M | Aug 12, 2013 |
System_Manual_13.4.1.pdf | 1465 pp | 14M | Aug 12, 2013 |
Release_Notes_13.4.1.pdf | 91 pp | 583K | Aug 12, 2013 |
Q: What is AWIPS?
A: The National Weather Service is in the process of developing the next generation of its AWIPS software (AWIPS II) to provide a comprehensive package in support of its forecasting and public service operations. This new software will be developed in Java, allowing it to run on more platforms than the current AWIPS software. Many of the underlying technologies in AWIPS will be based on open source projects and the plan is to make AWIPS software also open source. Currently, the NWS National Centers and NWS field forecast offices use different tools to support their mission, with the National Centers using NAWIPS, and NWS forecast offices use AWIPS, which is fundamentally different and not compatible with NAWIPS. The new AWIPS architecture will allow the NWS to reduce development time, expand data access and provide better integration and collaboration between the NWS field offices, river forecast centers and National Centers.
Q: Who is developing AWIPS?
A: Raytheon is responsible for developing the underlying infrastructure for AWIPS and migrating the existing AWIPS functionality into that infrastructure. NCEP is responsible for migrating the existing GEMPAK/NAWIPS functionality into the AWIPS framework.
Q: How is GEMPAK related to AWIPS?
A: GEMPAK functionality, specifically the underlying analysis and diagnostic routines, will be included with AWIPS, most likely as wrapped code. AWIPS is being developed for a "black box" GEMPAK transition, meaning batch scripts and automated processes which call GEMPAK routines would not require updating after migrating to AWIPS.
Q: What is Unidata's role in all this?
A: The Unidata Program Center distributes and provides support for GEMPAK to our member sites. Membership in Unidata is open to U.S. colleges and universities, and is free of charge. GEMPAK is also available as unsupported software without charge to organizations which do not participate in Unidata through the limitations specified in the Unidata participation policy. The UPC release of GEMPAK/NAWIPS incorporates several additions developed both locally and at other locations to enhance the use of real-time data aquired through the Unidata IDD, and through instructional case studies such as those developed at COMET. It includes GARP (GEMPAK Analysis and Rendering Program) which was developed by COMET.
Q: Why is NCEP moving away from GEMPAK?
A: The National Weather Service announced plans in 2007 to cease development of NAWIPS in August 2008 and proceed with a migration of the functionality of that package to the new AWIPS environment. The decision to migrate NAWIPS to AWIPS was made unilaterally by NWS. Since NCEP's primary goal is to support the National Centers, Unidata had no input on this decision.
Q: What is NCEP's plan for NAWIPS/GEMPAK?
A: NCEP intends to migrate all NAWIPS/GEMPAK functionality to AWIPS and intends to make AWIPS available to the Unidata community.
Q: If/When the UPC stops supporting GEMPAK, can I still use it?
A: The GEMPAK source code is freely available and will still be accessible in some form after the UPC ends official support. It will not stop working on any certain date. Furthermore, the existing support materials (tutorial, help manual and documentation) will still be available on line. The gembud mailing list will be kept active so GEMPAK users can provide community support to each other.
~/caveData
)
/awips2
contain the entire software system and data files.
/awips2/data_store
is performed at 30 minutes past every hour, and the default retention rate is 1 hour. Previous releases used ldmadmin scour
which had a minimum retention period of 1 day.