IEM Provided RADAR Information for GIS
Our RadView project is an effort to get real time NWS NEXRAD information
into GIS applications. We have no magic bullets for getting this information
into GIS systems, but have a number of things for you to try out!
These services are provided with-out warranty and with
program interfaces that may change or go away!
Quick links to specific products
News:
- 28 Jan 2012: Release the Single Site NEXRAD services.
- 28 Apr 2004: Release the NIDS 2 GIS application.
- 26 Apr 2004: Add in links for the nationwide composites of NTP (storm total precip) and N1P (1 hour precip)!
- 13 Jan 2004: Release the nationwide composite WMS!
- 16 Sep 2003: Add US base reflectivity, remove Iowa NTP product.
- 04 Jul 2003: The composite base reflectivity plot has been
greatly improved. The geo-referencing is nearly perfect!
- 01 Jul 2003: Initial release to the public.
NEXRAD + Mapserver Howto:
Here is a
HOWTO on generating NEXRAD
composites with GEMPAK and then displaying them in Mapserver. Feedback
is certainly welcome.
Geo-referenced Images:
Using geo-referenced images is probably the simpliest way of getting data
into your GIS. Displaying timestamps and color bars are tricky business. The
following URLs contain pure RASTER data layers.
| RADAR |
EPSG Proj Code |
Data Files |
World File |
US Base Reflectivity (N0R) Composite
(generated every 5 minutes) |
4326
(Lat-Lon) |
|
Decimal Degree Units |
US Storm Total Precip (NTP) Composite
(generated every 5 minutes) |
4326
(Lat-Lon) |
|
Decimal Degree Units |
US 1 Hour Precip (N1P) Composite
(generated every 5 minutes) |
4326
(Lat-Lon) |
|
Decimal Degree Units |
KCCI-TV SuperDoppler
(generated every 2-3 minutes) |
26915
UTM Zone 15N |
|
Meters |
Web Map Service (WMS):
WMS is a neat way to pull in images into your GIS, if your GIS can act
as a WMS client. Describing WMS is beyond the scope of this page, but we have
set up a WMS on our webserver. Point your WMS aware client at
https://mesonet.agron.iastate.edu/wms/radar.php?
for Iowa imagery in EPSG: 26915 (
NAD83 / UTM Zone 15N)
-or
Base Reflectivity:
https://mesonet.agron.iastate.edu/cgi-bin/wms/nexrad/n0r.cgi?
1 Hour Rainfall:
https://mesonet.agron.iastate.edu/cgi-bin/wms/nexrad/n1p.cgi?
Storm Total Rainfall:
https://mesonet.agron.iastate.edu/cgi-bin/wms/nexrad/ntp.cgi?
for United States imagery in EPSG: 4326 (
unprojected lat-lon)
Note: The WMS service should be able to send back an image in the
projection of your choice. This has worked during the limited testing done in house.
There are many free web WMS clients available on the Internet. Recently,
ESRI has released an OGC extension
supporting WMS for their free client called ArcExplorer. After downloading ArcExplorer, you will want to also download the Interoperability Extension. ESRI has also released an extension for
ArcIMS!
Notes and Caveats:
- The storm total precipitation (NTP) product does not directly composite. Each
NEXRAD site reports the value for a different timespan. Basically, once the
radar detects rain, it will begin to accumulate the rainfall in the NTP product.
Once it stops raining for an hour, the value is reset to zero. Since all sites
reset at different times, you see the issue.
