Titan

Titan is the Thunderstorm Identification, Tracking, Analysis and Nowcasting application.

Overview

Titan identifies storms in 3-D radar data stored in MDV format, tracks the storms and forecasts their position using extrapolation.

Prerequesites

The following items are required:

• Radar data (MDV format)

Parameter file

Titan uses one parameter file that includes information about the input/output directories and thunderstorm tracking parameters.

Ensure file is up to date

To obtain the default parameter file, use the following command:

/path/to/lrose/install/bin/Titan -print_params > param_file_name

If you already have a parameter file and simply want to check for (and add) updated parameters while retaining current parameters, use the following command:

/path/to/lrose/install/bin/Titan -params orig_param_file_name -print_params > new_param_file_name

Important parameters

Program mode of operation

• mode: determines if the program waits for new files (REALTIME), moves through start and end times specified on the command line (ARCHIVE), runs on the output from a model run (FORECAST), or runs only the tracking algorithm (RETRACK)

Data input

• input_url: path to MDV files

Data fields in input files

• dbz_field: name or field number of the reflectivity field
• vel_available: indicate whether velocity data is available
• vel_field: name or field number of the velocity field

Vertical profile - sounding

• sounding_mode: determines whether the sounding is specified in the parameter file (SPECIFY_SOUNDING) or read in from an Spdb database (READ_SOUNDING_FROM_SPDB)
• specified_sounding: enter the sounding, for SPECIFY_SOUNDING mode only
• sounding_spdb_url: path to Spdb sounding data, for READ_SOUNDING_FROM_SPDB mode only

Data output

• storm_data_dir: path where storm files are written
• spdb_output_url: Spdb database will be written to this directory

Running Titan

To check all command line options for Titan, including debugging options and file paths, type the following command into a terminal.

/path/to/lrose/install/bin/Titan -h

Once your parameter file is complete, use a command similar to the following to run the application:

/path/to/lrose/install/bin/Titan -params param_file_name