RadxMesoCyclone

RadxMesoCyclone estimates the 2-D velocity of a field using optical flow tracking.

Overview

RadxMesoCyclone estimates the 2-D velocity of a field in an MDV file by performing optical flow tracking. The optical flow code was provided by Alan Seed of the Australian Bureau or Meteorology.

Prerequesites

The following items are required:

• MDV radar files

Parameter file

RadxMesoCyclone uses one parameter file that includes the input/output directories and optical flow algorithm parameters.

Ensure file is up to date

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

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

Important parameters

Parameters

• fixed_const: fixed constants that are interpreted by user functions
• user_data: non-gridded data names
• volume_before_filter: volume filters to apply before the sweep filters; all filters can be viewed with the -print_operators parameter
• filter: sweep filters to apply; all filters can be viewed with the -print_operators parameter
• volume_after_filter: volume filters to apply after the sweep filters

Running RadxMesoCyclone

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

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

To see all the filtering options for RadxMesoCyclone, type the following command into a terminal.

/path/to/lrose/install/bin/RadxMesoCyclone -print_operators

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

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

The user can also specify the location of cfradial files in the following manner:

/path/to/lrose/install/bin/RadxMesoCyclone -f /path/to/cfradial/files/ -params param_file_name