Vertical Profile Data

Vertical profile data summarizes biological activity at different height bins above the radar station for each volume scan.

Data Organization

After extracting the downloaded archive files, the data directory tree will be populated with one csv file per radar volume scan containing the vertical profile information. A volume scan occurs at each radar station every 4 to 10 minutes. Files are grouped into folders by date and station:

profiles/2017/06/06/KBOX

Within each folder are csv files containing the profiles for radar volume scans on that that day:

KBOX20170606_000437.csv
KBOX20170606_000957.csv
KBOX20170606_001517.csv
...

The folder organization and file naming conventions follow the noaa-nexrad-level2 data on AWS, like this:

profiles/YYYY/MM/DD/CCCC/CCCCYYYYMMDD_hhmmss.csv

where the fields are as follows

YYYY - four-digit year
MM - two-digit month
DD - two-digit day
CCCC - four-character station identifier (call sign)
hh - two-digit hour (00-23)
mm - two-digit minute (00-59)
ss - two-digit second (00-59)

Each data file looks like this:

Source: profile.csv

bin_lower height linear_eta nbins direction speed u v rmse elev1 nvolumes_gr35_e1 elev2 nvolumes_gr35_e2 vcp linear_eta_unfiltered percent_rain
0 50 174.2377 27220 30.4075 14.2722 7.2238 12.3090 13.2357 0.4834 15 1.4941 0 32 186.9026 1.739583e-01
100 150 39.8291 44539 15.7965 10.2561 2.7919 9.8687 9.2237 0.4834 15 1.4941 0 32 39.9336 2.024603e-01
200 250 9.6261 44126 32.9968 9.5113 5.1798 7.9771 5.9313 0.4834 15 1.4941 0 32 9.7434 2.272024e-01
300 350 4.0976 42170 41.3613 8.5952 5.6797 6.4512 4.4508 0.4834 15 1.4941 0 32 4.1422 1.693615e-01
... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...

Schema: Vertical Profile

Source: profile.json

A vertical profile of biological activity above a radar station. Missing values may occur when a height bin contains no scattering volumes for the relevant radar variable or, for velocity-related fields, if there are numerical issues during velocity profiling.

Name Description Type Unit
bin_lower *

Lower limit of height bin.

  • required: true
  • minimum: 0
 integer m
height *

Center point of height bin.

  • required: true
  • minimum: 0
 integer m
linear_eta

Average linear reflectivity for height bin. Represents the radar cross section in cm2 per cubic kilometer of atmosphere.

  • minimum: 0.0
 number cm2 km-3
nbins *

Number of scattering volumes in height bin.

  • required: true
  • minimum: 0
 integer
direction

Mean direction of travel. The angle is given as a compass bearing in degrees clockwise from north.

  • minimum: 0.0
  • maximum: 360.0
 number degree
speed

Mean (ground) speed of travel.

  • minimum: 0.0
 number m s-1
u

Zonal (east-west) velocity component.

 number m s-1
v

Meridional (north-south) velocity component.

 number m s-1
rmse

Root-mean squared error of VVP fit for scattering volumes in height bin.

  • minimum: 0.0
 number m s-1
elev1 *

Elevation angle of lowest sweep.

  • required: true
  • minimum: 0.0
 number degree
nvolumes_gr35_e1 *

Number of scattering volumes with reflectivity factor exceeding 35 dBZ in lowest selected sweep.

  • required: true
  • minimum: 0
 integer
elev2 *

Elevation angle of second lowest sweep.

  • required: true
  • minimum: 0.0
 number degree
nvolumes_gr35_e2 *

Number of scattering volumes with reflectivity factor exceeding 35 dBZ in second lowest selected sweep.

  • required: true
  • minimum: 0
 integer
vcp *

NEXRAD volume coverage pattern for scan. Examples are 31, 32, 35 (clear air), 12, 212, 112, 215, 121 (precipitation).

  • required: true
 integer
linear_eta_unfiltered

Average reflectivity for all scattering volumes in height bin, including those classified as rain.

  • minimum: 0.0
 number cm2 km-3
percent_rain

Fraction of scattering volumes in height bin classified as precipitation. This fraction is weighted toward regions closer to the radar in accordance to the density of scattering volumes, which are smaller and more densely packed at closer ranges. In the derived data products, this variable is renamed to fraction_rain.

  • minimum: 0.0
  • maximum: 1.0
 number