Sounding Viewer

A simple sounding visualization tool that can edit sounding data.

Features

• Provides a simple interface to choose coordinates, model run and hour for obtaining GFS data from rucsoundings.noaa.gov and nomads.ncep.noaa.gov.
• Imports and exports files in GSL format
• Sounding data can be modified through the table panel, and changes are immediately reflected in the diagram and in the indices panel.
• It is possible to insert new levels, and delete existing levels.
• Pressure levels can be temporarily excluded from index calculations and plots.
• Detailed moisture information for all levels, including interpolated levels.
• Skewness and temperature limits of the Skew-T log-P diagram are automatically determined, but they are customizable.
• Wet bulb temperature and virtual temperature lines
• Hodograph
• Instability indices

Indices

• CAPE, CIN, LFC, EL and Lifted Index (both surface based and most unstable parcel based)
• Precipitable Water
• K Index, Modified K Index
• Totals Totals, Modified Totals Totals
• Soaring Index
• Boyden Index
• Vertical Totals, Cross Totals
• Modified Jefferson Index
• Rackliff Index
• Thompson Index
• Showalter Index
• Convective Instability Index
• Fog Stability Index
• Deep Convective Index
• KO Index
• Potential Instability Index
• Humidity Index
• Bottom and top altitudes of the deepest effective inflow layer
• Bulk shear for 0-1km, 0-3km, 0-6km, 0-8km and effective inflow layer
• Bunkers Storm Motion speed for right moving and left moving supercells
• Storm Relative Helicity for 0-1km, 0-3km and effective inflow layer
• Energy Helicity Index for 0-1km, 0-3km and effective inflow layer
• SWEAT Index
• Supercell Composite Parameter

Dependencies

No external dependencies are required for soundings obtained from rucsoundings.noaa.gov, but the data is relatively limited. In order to parse GRIB2 files obtained from nomads.ncep.noaa.gov, wgrib2 is required.

On Windows

The wgrib2 binaries together with necessary Cygwin DLLs are provided at the wgrib2 website: https://ftp.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/wd51we/wgrib2/Windows10/v3.0.2/ Download all files at the link into the same directory, and add that directory to the environment variable PATH before installing Sounding Viewer.

On Linux

Most common distributions have wgrib2 package in their repositories. If you use a distribution that does not provide wgrib2 binaries, it can be easily compiled from source by simply running 'make'. No configuration is needed. The binary is produced in the subdirectory wgrib2. Adding that directory to PATH is sufficient.

Installing

For Windows and Debian-based Linux distributions, binary installers can be found under releases.

Building from source

Node is needed.

To build and start the application:

npm install
npm run build
npm run start

To create a binary installer:

npm install
npm run build
npm run make

LICENSE

Sounding Viewer is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

Sounding Viewer is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with Sounding Viewer. If not, see https://www.gnu.org/licenses/.