Py-ART 1.5.0 Now Available

 
Published: 3 November 2015
This image shows how Py-ART’s new circular statistics functions can be used to extract texture information that is then used as a fuzzy logic gate classifier. These data are from the ARM C-SAPR at the Southern Great Plains site.

The Python ARM Radar Toolkit (Py-ART) development team has released version 1.5.0. as an open-source Python module for reading, visualizing, correcting, and analyzing weather radar data.

Version 1.5.0 includes several improvements over past releases including:

  • More ingests for ARM and non-ARM formats including Ka-band ARM Zenith Radar files.
  • Installers that work with the Windows operating system.
  • Circular statistics for computation on fields that are prone to folding, which is very useful for texture computations.
  • A new system for objectively filtering gate data.

This release of Py-ART sees the introduction of a new concept: the gate filter. Users can construct gate filters using simple logic expressions, for example, “Where the reflectivity is above 10dBZ and the radial velocity does not equal zero.” Applications, such as the dealias function, then accept a gate filter to determine where the algorithm should be run. This allows consistency among applications in determining where code should be run.

Py-ART is available for download as source code from the GitHub repository. Individual contributors can easily interact with the project, provide better solutions, and continue to work in their own copy of the project until the issue is resolved in the main project.

Documentation is available here. Quick installs for various systems are available here.

Feedback and use of the data are welcomed and encouraged. For questions or to report data problems, please contact Scott Collis or Jonathan Helmus.

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The ARM Climate Research Facility is a national scientific user facility funded through the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science. The ARM Facility is operated by nine Department of Energy national laboratories.