\(\omega radlib\) moves forward#

As you probably all know by now, \(\omega radlib\) is moving forward now and in the near future. There are several aspects which are laid out in this blog post.

Xradar#

In the upcoming version 1.19 \(\omega radlib\) will use xradar for reading/writing radar data. For this to happen, I’ve ported all related code from \(\omega radlib\) to xradar. Xradar, a package dedicated to read and write radar data based on xarray structures, was launched in late August 2022, on initiative of Max Grover and me.

A compatibility layer is kept in \(\omega radlib\) which enables users to continue using their code and early adopt full xradar dependency.

\(\omega radlib\) 2.0#

After the above switch to xradar in \(\omega radlib\) 1.19 there will be quite some new code based on xarray data structures flowing into wradlib. We’ll have to cut off some old braids, too. But, using the Scientific Python stack with all those great packages, like Xarray, Dask, matplotlib, Jupyter, NumPy, SciPy, to name only a few, \(\omega radlib\) is still standing on the shoulders of giants.

wradlib-data#

The wradlib-data repository is on the move to use pooch for retrieving datasets. That way you only have to install shallow package and the data will be fetched from the repo on demand.

wradlib-notebooks#

The wradlib-notebooks have been updated and restructured a bit to be in line with the latest developments. There is a bit of work ahead to get all notebooks up-to-date using recent technology.

wradlib-docs#

The split of \(\omega radlib\) into three repos back in early 2016 was no easy decision. It helped a lot in gaining as much as possible from the emerging GitHub cloud system. Now, as GitHub has tremendously advanced - huge thanks to GitHub for providing this all for free for us open source projects - it has come the time to get the wradlib-docs back into the \(\omega radlib\) main repository. We can much more easily keep everything together without any loose ends. This will most likely happen just after \(\omega radlib\) 1.19 release. In the same time the docs will have a refresh as well. We will also see a new theme by then.

wradlib-users forum#

We’ve seen any kind of questions and help in our forum over the years. I always appreciated the constructive and friendly discussions. Within the openradar community we’ve discussed how to get more close together with respect to help users and discuss any matters of weather radar and more. Our not so new openradar-discourse discussion-group is our new location where users, developers, scientists and other weather radar enthusiasts can come together. The wradlib-users forum will go out of service later this year.

I hope to see you around - Stay well, Everyone!