Data from the BALTEX Radar Data Centre

CONTENTS

On-line archive
Availability
Policies
Format

On-line archive

Right HERE!
 

Availability

The BRDC encourages Users to arrange their identifications and licenses as early as possible. This will ensure that these Users will receive their data sets without undue delay and it will simplify the data's distribution.

Products from the BRDC were available to registered BALTEX Data Users on a series of CD-ROMs: one CD for each month of the Bridge campaign. These products were stored in the BALTRAD file format, described below.

Since the end of Bridge, BALTRAD datasets continue to be made available to individual users on a first-come first-serve basis. This is in the process of changing to a web-based archive which is scheduled to deployment in early 2007.

Some of the members of the WGR who contribute data to the BRDC receive some products on-line, regularly delayed. If, for some reason, a Data User wishes to receive these products through one of these institutes, then this can be arranged through special agreement among the BRDC, the Data User, and the WGR member.
 

Policies

The General Policy for data exchange within BALTEX is stated in the Implementation Plan, Chapter 10.1. This policy is available on-line at the International BALTEX Secretariat at GKSS.

BRDC products are available to registered BALTEX Data Users. In order to become such a User, you must register with the International BALTEX Secretariat at GKSS. This is done by filling in a BALTEX Data User Identification form, sending it to the GKSS, and receiving your identification from them. They will, in turn, inform the BALTEX Data Centres of who are registered Users.

Information on becoming a BALTEX Data User can be found on-line at the Secretariat.

Once you have become an official BALTEX Data User, you will automatically be a BRDC data user.
 

Format

ON-LINE ARCHIVE: the HDF5 format is used throughout, as is the COST 717 information model.

Historical information:

"Standards are great. That's why we have so many of them."   -Richard Brause

This quotation reflects the reality of working with radar data. There is a virtual zoo of formats and ideas on how to organize radar data. In short, radar is pretty far down on the evolutionary ladder in this respect. This is not odd, when you think about it, since radars are typically operated by national, or even provincial, institutes and different radar manufacturors are known to use different data formats, some of which are more secret than others. This is in stark contrast to other types of data, such as those from satellites and numerical weather prediction models which cover much larger, international, areas and are often results of multi-national collaborations.

Within a European context, the Eumetnet Operational Programme for the Exchange of Weather Radar Information, OPERA, is enhancing our ability to exchange data internationally and make better use of data from the European weather radar network. For many years, BUFR has been the European standard format for radar data exchange. More recently, the HDF5 file format has deployed operationally in the Nordic network NORDRAD, and this format is now being used at the BRDC as well. Before this, an in-house format (the "BALTRAD" format) was developed for the BRDC and used on early CD-ROMs. Details:

(no longer)

Starting with the July, 2001 CD-ROM, the HDF5 file format is being used to distribute BRDC datsets. On-line documentation is available which describes the information model which has been defined for this purpose, along with its implementation.

The documentation for the previously used so-called BALTRAD file format is still available on-line for those who need to read datasets generated up to and including the June, 2001 CD-ROM.