NEXRAD Level II Archive Tool

This tool uses Spatialite in conjunction with the NCEI Storm Events Database to archive only NEXRAD Level II data for which storms were recorded by the National Weather Service. Using the start and end times and coordinates of a given storm event, this tool is able to query and filter objects in the NEXRAD Level II Amazon bucket, allowing one to only archive volume scans for which storms were noted, from the appropriate radar sites.

Building

Simply run make to produce a Docker image pre-populated with the NEXRAD radar site database.

Running

Invoke sh run.sh to run this archival tool, passing two arguments:

• The path to a storm events database CSV export file, whose name as obtained from the NCEI begins with StormEvents_details_. Only these files contain the start and end coordinates of a storm which are used to select data from the correct radar sites.

• A path to a destination directory where archived data shall be downloaded. Note that files downloaded under this directory will be organized in the YYYY/MM/DD/SITE/ hierarchy.

Other optional arguments will be passed through to the bin/nexrad-archive executable within the Docker image:

• --dry-run

  This will avoid actually performing any archiving; instead, the tool will indicate what actions it would take.

• --quiet

  Suppresses standard output.

• --exclude="Event Type"

  Exclude one or more event types from consideration for archival. These event types are documented by the NCEI. Cannot be specified alongside --type. Can be specified more than once.

• --type="Event Type"

  Explicitly specify which event types to archive. Cannot be specified alongside --exclude. Can be specified more than once.