Meteorology

Dr Robert Dahni is a meteorologist who has worked in the Australian Bureau of Meteorology for over 25 years. From weather forecasting, IT support in research and operations to software development for domestic and international projects, he has developed skills in the analysis and visualisation of meteorological data.

Map Background

Map Background is an interactive desktop application used to create background images for the web utilising coastline (e.g. IDL, GSHHS or GA), elevation (e.g. GTOPO30 or GADEM9S) and location spatial data sets. Features include simple updating of the map backgrounds with interactive placement of location name labels, and automatic generation of hotlinks for clickable maps. Map Background is an easy to learn application written entirely in IDL. The application can easily be extended, and read or write many formats of spatial data (e.g. shapefiles) and images.

Map Flash

Map Flash is an interactive desktop application used to display meteorological analysis grids, weather charts, radar and satellite images, GPATS and WWLL lightning data, and CSIRO Sentinel hotspots. Features include the display of mean sea level (MSL) pressure, surface and upper level temperature, mixing ratio, wind and height analysis grids, analysis of geographic frequency and diurnal variation of lightning, and overlay of map, grid, image, lightning and hotspots data. Map Flash is written entirely in IDL. The application can read and write many formats of gridded, image and spatial data.

Synoptic Typer

The Synoptic Typer is an interactive desktop application designed to perform automated objective synoptic typing using a pattern recognition scheme. A history of grid point analyses is used to develop the synoptic types using both principal component and cluster analysis techniques. Real-time NWP model output can also be classified to produce synoptic type forecast guidance. Synoptic typing can be run over any area of interest utilising the global NCEP re-analysis dataset. Synoptic Typer is an IDL-based application.

Map Browser

Map Browser is an interactive desktop application used to view archived grids, tropical cyclones, synoptic types and weather variables. Features include the display of an archive of mean sea level pressure analyses from the NCEP re-analysis dataset, synoptic type data from the Synoptic Typer including calculation of the mean field and frequency analysis of weather variables for each synoptic type, and position of any historical tropical cyclone in the Australian region. Map Browser is an IDL-based application.

Links

Bureau of Meteorology (Australia): Synoptic Typer | Map Browser
University of British Columbia (Canada): Synoptic Sea-Level Pressure Patterns Generated by A General Circulation Model