Digital Atmosphere User Manual April 2021 edition NOTICE This User’s Guide and the accompanying software are copyrighted. All rights are reserved. This guide may be reproduced and distributed electronically or in print as long as it is offered free of charge and is not modified. Digital Atmosphere is provided as-is and furthermore is openly provided as share- ware to be tested and evaluated before registration. The user has the sole and final responsibility for testing whether the software will work properly in all environ- ments and applications. By registering Digital Atmosphere with the author, the user affirms that the software has been tested and is acceptable. The author makes no warranty and representation, either implied or expressed, with respect to the quality, performance, merchantability, or fitness for a particular purpose of the software or documentation. The author reserves the right to make changes and improvements to the software, the User’s Guide, and to sales policies at any time and without obligation to notify any person or organization of the revision or change. All brand and product names are the trademarks of their respective owner. Mi- crosoft and Windows are either trademarks or registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. Digital Atmosphere is a trademark of Weather Graphics Technolo- gies. Digital Atmosphere ©1996-2020 Weather Graphics Technologies / All rights reserved Weather Graphics, P.O. Box 170, Palestine TX 75802 www.weathergraphics.com Contents 1 / About this software 1 2 / The main window 9 3 / File menu 15 4 / Map menu 25 5 / Data menu 31 6 / Analysis 39 7 / Radar 47 8 / Climatology 55 9 / Window 59 10 / Help 61 11 / Preferences 63 12 / FAQs 75 APPENDIX 79 APPENDIX A — Terminology 81 APPENDIX B — Custom data fields 83 APPENDIX C — Map attribute file format 85 APPENDIX D — Field and product codes 87 APPENDIX E — GRIB data 89 APPENDIX F — Scheduler scripting 93 APPENDIX G — Analysis scripting 99 APPENDIX H — Radar import tutorial 105 APPENDIX I — Importing satellite images 109 APPENDIX J — Color fills 111 APPENDIX K — Tabular weather data (comma delimited) 113 APPENDIX L — Tabular weather data (space delimited) 117 APPENDIX M — Exported analysis grids 119 APPENDIX N — Station plot fields 121 APPENDIX O — Multilanguage support 125 APPENDIX P — Raw data samples 127 APPENDIX Q — Version change summaries 131 HIGHLIGHTS OF DIGITAL ATMOSPHERE * A self-contained realtime weather data plotting system * Access to surface charts, upper air plots, and soundings 15-45 minutes before they’re available on Internet sites * Creates maps even when Internet map sources aren’t working * Contains a worldwide geography dataset with 2-mile resolution * Automatic retrieval of datasets and graphical weather products through the Internet * Global terrain data with 30-mile resolution (half-mile resolution easily available with planetary maps) * Detailed county/parish geography, highway, and road data for the United States * A master listing of over 30,000 weather stations across the globe, which can be modified by the user * Lightning-fast ability to import surface airways (SAO), METAR, synoptic, ship synoptic, and AIREP code * Easily-customized surface and upper-air plots * A powerful array of analysis and contouring tools; complete with vorticity, divergence, and advection derivatives * Quick plotting of national radar composites and site radar images * Plotting of NEXRAD dual-polarization products * Limited handling of non-US radar sources and compositing with other surface data * Graphing, plotting, and contouring of climatology for over 2,000 stations worldwide * Instantly delete or modify erroneous reports with an easy-to-use quality control panel 1 / About this software Since the 1990s, Digital Atmosphere has Digital Atmosphere is used by certain Na- served as the leading operational weather analy- tional Weather Service, Air Force, and Navy of- sis tool for Windows. Even as we approach fices, dozens of television stations and consulting 2020, it enjoys a dedicated following, allow- firms, and hundreds of amateurs and hobbyists. ing users to “roll their own” weather maps in a Its powerful and rapidly expanding capabilities way not possible anywhere else on the Internet. will let you monitor developing weather any- Nearly all programs that are available nowadays where on Earth — around the globe, or right in focus mostly on satellite, radar, or model data, your own local area. and not on the broad swath of realtime data. The maps and other products you create with As of 2020 the majority of Internet weather Digital Atmosphere are fully customizable. You maps are also low resolution, generally below can define the geographic area you wish to map 1024 x 768, compared to the high-resolution and specify the map’s resolution. You decide capability of home printers and 4K displays. how much detail you want shown in your maps. Digital Atmosphere caters to all of these higher- You can select for example country borders only, resolution devices. or rendered topography with county lines and Digital Atmosphere also solves what is still roads overlaid. You choose what weather data a widespread problem of charts perishing from you want displayed, how the data is displayed, web servers as soon as newer data arrives, which and in many cases what algorithms are used to can make it extremely difficult to reconstruct analyze the data. Whatever your meteorological case studies. The software allows old data from graphics needs, Digital Atmosphere can create many types of historical sources to be plotted exactly the map you desire, using the parameters again in full detail with ease. you choose. Digital Atmosphere’s story begins in the late 1980s, as a weather analysis program took shape 1.1. Supported datasets on the Commodore 128. This was developed Digital Atmosphere supports the following into the PC program RadarScan in 1992, which data formats, most of which are automatically started as an MDR RAREP data viewer, and then downloaded from the Internet: into WeatherGraphix in 1993, the first true plot- n ting program. Land synoptic (WMO FM-12 SYNOP) n The idea was to provide powerful capabilities Ship synoptic (WMO FM-13 SHIP) for the desktop similar to the National Weather n METAR (WMO FM-15 METAR) Service’s AFOS system. In 1995 the code base n Buoy (WMO FM-18 BUOY) was ported to Windows 95 and released as n Upper air (WMO FM-35 TEMP) Digital Atmosphere on January 7, 1996. A n Aircraft data report (ACARS) (WMO FM-42 succession of updates and expansions then fol- AMDAR) lowed over the years. The program is written in n NMC frontal depiction interchange format Object Pascal, and supports Windows 7, 8, and (NOAA/NCEP ASUS1) 10 as well as older Windows versions since it’s n Gridded binary (GRIB) (WMO FM-92-IX). still a 32-bit program, and is optimized where it As of 2020, support has been added for GRIB2 doesn’t need 64-bit power. 2 | DIGITAL ATMOSPHERE MANUAL / April 2021 FIGURE 1-1: Surface analysis for Canada, June 2015. and are working on the full implementation problem. 1.3. System require- ments Digital Atmosphere runs under Windows 7, 8, and 10; and Windows Vista, XP, and 2000. It is still writ- ten as a 32-bit (x86) applica- tion as the algorithms are not particularly processor-inten- sive. Nevertheless, it runs normally under all current 64-bit versions of Windows, data but full implementation is still incomplete including Windows 10. There is no minimum due to the varying structures of the data. hardware requirement. It is strongly recom- n NEXRAD Level III WSR-88D NEXRAD mended to have an Internet connection when format running the software, but this is not necessary n Australian AXF comma-delimited observa- if users are supplying their own data sources or tional data and similar formats are using data archives. n NHC Hurricane Warning bulletins 1.4. Registering the software 1.2. How it fits in Your Digital Atmosphere copy is a fully- functional version. There are no separate It should be pointed out that Digital “registered” and “demo” versions, and there’s Atmosphere is an analysis tool, designed for nothing else to download or install! However, weather systems that are being observed in you must register Digital Atmosphere real time (or with historical datasets). It is Workstation within 30 days of installing it. expected that the forecaster will use Digital If you don’t do this, at the 30-day point the Atmosphere as a tool to diagnose and software will disable certain features such as understand weather systems being depicted, in quality control, scripting, climatology, and order to develop a conceptual understanding loading/saving of maps. of what is happening, and integrate that information into a proper forecast process. The software is written and maintained by Tim Vasquez. Your registration is vital for Digital Atmosphere is not designed to helping continue to invest countless hours directly display forecast or model fields, into this program. As of October 2018, the though as of 2020 we have constructed support project consisted of 233,000 lines of computer for forecast model download and display, source code, which is typical of a very large DIGITAL ATMOSPHERE MANUAL / April 2021 | 3 project. A coding session may take as long as 1.6. Pricing and ordering 16 hours. Your registration literally helps pay If you haven’t already purchased the the bills and keep the lights on. If you want to software, here’s what you need to know. The sole contribute extra support to the project, visit source for Digital Atmosphere is the Weather www.weathergraphics.com/pay and you might Graphics website at: receive some extra VIP perks and privileges. www.weathergraphics.com Anytime you register Digital Atmosphere, Pricing and registration is available on you will receive a key number that you enter the website.