We are modifying the NCAR CEDRIC (Custom Editing and Display of Reduced Information in Cartesian space) software program to read the WRF netCDF data and to provide WRF users with a diagnostic analysis tool. Very often the scientist is limited to comparing images of modeled data with images of observed data, with no real way to compare these or combine these datasets in any quantitative algebraic way. Since CEDRIC has been used for many years for analysis of mostly gridded radar data, is widely distributed, maintained, and well-documented, it seems logical to proceed with these modifications.

In this new application of CEDRIC, the analyses will move upscale from single-storm scales to regional scales with emphasize on multi-radar, satellite, cloud, and model datasets. Past datasets analyzed with CEDRIC have been on regular grids with the vertical coordinate usually height above mean sea level. Therefore, we are incorporating utilities needed to remap regional observations and WRF model data from their native coordinate systems to either constant pressure or constant height surfaces. Further, any diagnostic variables that are best computed in the WRF model native coordinate system are done before the remapping. In so doing, we can provide a vehicle for combining model and observational data in a variety of analytic ways. We will show examples of how CEDRIC might be used to analyze WRF model data, and (if sufficient progress is made) we will also show examples using both modeled and observed data. The main intent of this presentation is to let users know about this software development effort.