About the Fall/Winter 1996 cover

Provided by UCAR's Research Applications Program (RAP), this regularly updated plot of US surface temperatures was generated using NCAR Graphics visualization software. (More information below.)

To see the most current image being provided by the RAP web server, you can select the frame that contains the image and then select "Reload Frame" from your browser's View menu. This image is updated hourly, except for occasional data transmission problems from NCEP (National Centers for Environmental Prediction).

About RAP's weather web site

RAP provides a real-time weather data web site with a wide range of timely and useful information:

The satellite page contains images of clouds taken from space by the geostationary satellite GOES-8.
The radar page contains links to hourly images of radar reflectivity data obtained by the National Weather Service NEXRAD (WSR-88D) doppler radars.
The surface page contains plots of raw hourly surface data including temperature, dewpoint temperature, wind, and air pressure on close-up regional maps of the US. (This is the page from which the Fall/Winter SCDzine cover graphic is taken.)
The upper-air page contains raw temperature, moisture, and wind data from weather balloons (radiosondes) that are launched twice a day.
The aviation weather page contains plots of specific aviation-related data including pilot reports of icing and turbulence, airmen meteorological bulletins, and significant meteorological bulletins.
The numerical model page contains plots derived from numerical weather forecast models that are run on high-end workstations or supercomputers.
The miscellaneous weather page contains links to many more weather data sites, access to the RAP Weather Machine, and links to general weather information.

About RAP

Scientists and engineers at RAP are working to improve our ability to detect and predict aviation weather hazards such as wind shear, thunderstorms, and winter storms and icing. The program, funded by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), performs atmospheric research and develops and transfers new technology based on that research to public and private-sector users to improve the safety and efficiency of aviation.

About NCAR Graphics

With the release of Version 4, NCAR Graphics continues its evolution into an integrated environment for data processing and scientific visualization. The package contains multiple interfaces to accommodate diverse user skill levels and application needs. Many tools come bundled with the distribution to perform such functions as viewing and editing metafiles, creating animations, converting between raster formats, resizing and compressing raster images, and zooming on images.

NCAR Graphics produces output files based on popular industry standards, such as PostScript and Computer Graphics Metafile (CGM). This allows you to import NCAR Graphics plots into non-NCAR visualization tools that run on Macintoshes, Personal Computers (PCs), and UNIX systems.

NCAR Graphics has a long history.

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