The Weather Forecasting Forum

I was wondering if there is a way to display a storm relative isentropic analysis. Many papers have indicated that simply doing pressure advection on an isentropic surface is not terribly helpful, especially if the system has a significant translational speed, which most winter systems do. I would like to be able to display pressure advection by the storm relative wind as opposed to the true wind. The help guide shows a command VADC, where you enter a vector and a constant. I have tried command strings, such as WIND 2320, but to no avail. If anyone has any ideas, please let me know. Thanks!

This is a very good question that I would like to know as well.

My main weather analysis tool is NAWIPS/GEMPAK, but I am also a hard core PCGRIDDS fan.

Allowing for a storm relative analysis of isentropic data/theta surfaces, wind speeds, frontogenesis, and vertical motion helps greatly when trying to determine the area of heavy banded snows. The difference between ground relative and storm relative can be greater than 100 miles in some cases, which can obviously have an effect on a forecast.

All,

This is something I have been researching for the past few months. I have read Dr. James Moore's isentropic related papers and references he makes to incorporating system motion into omega calculations. The more I think about the concept and incorporating a diagnostic command into PCGRIDDS32, the more involved and complex the problem becomes. In short, (from my perspective) you have to compare the motion of individual contours (pressure surfaces?) between two forecast hours...which is easier said than done.

If anyone is willing to contribute an algorithm, I'd be willing to use it Does AWIPS, NAWIPS, GEMPAK, etc. have a macro or script to calculate this? It can be done (it's only software)...the question is, how?

Jeff

[quote="jkrob"]...

If anyone is willing to contribute an algorithm, I'd be willing to use it ]

I have been trying to figure out a way in GEMPAK as well, and have yet to come across any scripts. I am with you in thinking that developing a script or macro would probably be pretty hard for PCGRIDDS, and maybe a bit easier in GEMPAK, since it handles multiple data times better. I would like to do case studies with regards to mean synoptic motion and it's affects on meteorological parameters, particularly on the data I saved from the big Ohio snowstorm (12/23/04), where a couple places got nearly 3 feet of snow from a nice banded event...

I have a program I developed many years ago in QuickBASIC, now ported to Visual Basic that you can run outside of PCGRIDDS32 and it will write a command file. It is at:

http://members.cox.net/geophi/RELATIVE.EXE

Put it in the MACROS directory and run it, change the dir and speed for the system of interest, and a SYST.CMD file will be produced that will display the system relative wind vectors, pressure on that isentropic surface, and resulting vertical motion on that isentropic surface.

Depending on your OS and what you have installed on it, you might need the MS VB6 runtime files available here

At the time, I was supplied a macro from another person, that purports to do the same within PCGRIDDS only for a layer (i.e. you need to SLYR i295 i300, or whatever), but I could never get it to work. That macro is below if anyone wants to see if they can get it to work.