IRIS Product Overview

BASE

Echo Base

BASE is used to determine the base of echoes.

BEAM¹

Antenna Beam Pattern

BEAM is a full screen cross-section format image showing range-averaged intensity in azimuth and elevation coordinates.

BEAM is used during calibration and alignment and to verify antenna patterns.

CAPPI

Constant Altitude PPI

CAPPI is a horizontal cut at a selected altitude used for surveillance and severe storm identification.

It is also useful for monitoring the weather at specific flight levels for air traffic applications.

FCAST¹

Forecast

FCAST is an array of direction and intensity vectors used to shift a current weather display interactively.

GAGE¹

The GAGE product stores reports from rain gage sensors for display and use in product generation. These products are produced using an input pipe from data sent by a weather station system.

Because GAGE products are not produced from radar data, they do not need to be configured or scheduled.

Height of Maximum Intensity Product

HMAX displays the height of the maximum data above each output pixel.

This product requires a volume scan.

LAYER can compute layer averages of any polar data types in the ingest files.

LAYER can also convert to liquid first and compute VIL Density. When computing VIL Density, the output is in g/m**3.

MAX

Maximum Data

MAX shows the maximum data over each pixel as well as the East-West and North-South maximum projects in side panes.

MLHGT¹

Melting Level Height

MLHGT displays a map of the melting layer altitudes.

PPI

Plan Position Indicator

PPI is a full screen image used primarily for weather surveillance purposes.

RAIN1¹

Hourly Rain Accumulation

RAIN1 is hourly rainfall accumulation.

RAINN¹

N-Hour Rain Accumulation

RAINN is rainfall accumulation of the last N hours, where N is selected by the user.

RAW

Raw Data Product

A RAW data file that contains the raw signal processor output parameters (Z, ZT, V, W, ZDR, and so on) in polar coordinates.

A RAW file contains all the information collected during a measurement task. It is compressed so it can be sent over the network to IRIS Analysis.

While RAW data cannot be displayed, it is useful for recording on tape/disk/DVD or transferring to another IRIS network computer for product generation.

RTI¹

Range Time Indicator

RTI displays time along the horizontal axis and the vertical axis displays range from the radar.

Often used for manual scans when observing a fixed target.

RHI¹

Range Height Indicator

RHI is a full screen image showing the detailed cross-sectional structure of a storm, used for identifying severe storms, hail and bright band.

SRI¹

Surface Rainfall Intensity

SRI provides input for the RAIN1 product to obtain the best possible estimates of accumulated precipitation even at longer ranges from the radar.

STAT

Radar System Status

A STAT file contains a report indicating the state of all key components of the radar software.

THICK

Echo Thickness

THICK shows the thickness of cloud echoes.

THICK is the same as the difference between the TOPS and BASE values.

The THICK product also computes the average reflectivity in the layer identified by the selected dBZ Contour.

TOPS

Echo Tops Map

TOPS is a color-coded contour map of the top of a selected dBZ level.

Either Z or ZT can be used as the basis for the estimate.

TRACK¹

Interactive Storm Tracking and Forecasting

TRACK products show the projected motion for storm features (centroids) based on a series of input products from different times.

TRACK is an overlay product created in the Quick Look Window.

VAD¹

Velocity Azimuth Display

VAD is a display of the mean Doppler velocity at a given range as a function of the azimuth angle as the radar antenna rotates through an azimuth scan at a constant elevation.

VIL¹

Vertically Integrated Liquid

VIL is a color-coded map of the estimated depth of water (in mm) contained in a selectable atmospheric layer. This is an excellent indicator of severe storms.

Either Z or ZT can be used as the basis for the estimate.

VVP¹

Velocity Volume Processing

VVP provides line graphs or time against height cross-sections of wind speed, wind direction and divergence against height.

You can select the range of influence and the maximum height.

WARN

Warning/Centroid

WARN is automatic alerting and centroid plotting.

Automatic alerts can be set for areas of interest and user-selectable warning criteria.

Output is an alert message and a situation overlay showing the centroid locations of storm features, such as high VIL or reflectivity.

WIND¹

Wind Speed and Direction

WIND displays wind speed and direction with either wind bards or wind strings.

You can specify the range and height of the data, and the range and azimuth spacing of the lines that are displayed.

XSECT

Cross Section

XSECT is a volume scan product that shows the height cross-section along a user-definable line.

CATCH ¹

Cross Section

CATCH calculates the precipitation accumulation in subcatchment areas such as watershed areas.

This product requires the Hydromet option.

COMP

Multi-Radar Site Composite

COMP produces a single composite image of radar data from many radar sites.

DWELL¹

Composite in Time

DWELL is comprised of a product and composites successive images of a product in time. Moving targets show a "streak" on the display.

NDOP ¹

Multiple Doppler

NDOP provides a mechanism for including velocity (Doppler) data from another radar site now enabling the measurement of horizontal wind in addition to vertical wind.

SHEAR¹

Wind Shear

SHEAR detects wind shear in the atmosphere, allowing the detection of microbursts, gust fronts, mesocyclones, cold fronts, and atmospheric waves.

SLINE¹

Shear Line (frontal boundary)

SLINE marks the transition between two air masses on the image.