Technical Note: An open source library for processing weather radar data (<i>wradlib</i>)

• Main Authors: T. Pfaff, S. Jacobi, M. Heistermann
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Copernicus Publications 2013-02-01
• Series: Hydrology and Earth System Sciences
• Online Access: http://www.hydrol-earth-syst-sci.net/17/863/2013/hess-17-863-2013.pdf

The potential of weather radar observations for hydrological and meteorological research and applications is undisputed, particularly with increasing world-wide radar coverage. However, several barriers impede the use of weather radar data. These barriers are of both scientific and technical nature. The former refers to inherent measurement errors and artefacts, the latter to aspects such as reading specific data formats, geo-referencing, visualisation. The radar processing library <i>wradlib</i> is intended to lower these barriers by providing a free and open source tool for the most important steps in processing weather radar data for hydro-meteorological and hydrological applications. Moreover, the community-based development approach of <i>wradlib</i> allows scientists to share their knowledge about efficient processing algorithms and to make this knowledge available to the weather radar community in a transparent, structured and well-documented way.