As a general update, it's been a few years since the major revisions to our grid- and map-level processing software were complete. These revisions date back to RST 4.0 (as of this writing, RST is at version 4.3.1) with the new files being named grid2 and map2 so that previous files could be maintained for data reproducibility. A number of other data issues were being sorted out and processed, including the expansion of the VT data storage systems, that delayed a mass processing of the new files. However with a break in some activities, grid2 and map2 files have now been generated back to the start of the modern dmap file format on July 1, 2006.

As always, for a listing of what files we have for certain dates please visit our Data Inventory page.

Marina Schmidt of the University of Saskatchewan SuperDARN group has announced the official release of pyDARN. In her words
'pyDARN is a python library used for data visualization of SuperDARN data.
Currently, it can:
- read and write SuperDARN DMap files
- read, write and convert Borealis hdf5 files
- range-time parameter plots
- summary plots
Thank you for all the support and help from the community.'

For directions on how to install and use pyDARN, clock 'Read More'

Following consultations with the organizers of the 2020 Workshop in South Africa (Drs. Michael Kosch and Judy Stephenson) and the SuperDARN PIs, the Chair of the SuperDARN Executive Council, Dr. Kathryn McWilliams, has announced that the SuperDARN Workshop is postponed until next year due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
See the conference website for more information.
Conference web site: https://superdarn2019.ukzn.ac.za.

Any enquiries, please contact Judy at .

Photo credit: Conference web site (Drakensberg cathedral peaks with aloes)

Dr. Federica Marcucci of the Istituto di Astrofisica e Planetologia Spaziali (IAPS), part of the National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF), has announced that the SuperDARN Dome C North (DCN) radar located at Franco-Italian base Concordia, at Dome C (Antarctica), is now contributing data to the SuperDARN data flow. This radar joins the Dome C East (DCE) radar in making Dome C a dual radar site. The starting date for data availability is January 29, 2019. Federica advises that '..from now on Enrico Simeoli of the Italian National Research Council ICT Dep., will take care of DCE and DCN data distribution and you can consider him as the contact person for every topic regarding data accessibility and availability.'

Congratulations to Federica and her radar team!

The PI for the new HF radar located at Jiamusi, Dr. Jiaojiao Zhang of the National Space Science Center, Chinese Academy of Sciences, has been working with the SuperDARN Data Distribution Working Group (DDWG) to begin contributing data to the general distribution. The radar site is located in northeastern China (46.8 deg N, 130.5 deg E; 41.8 deg N in AACGM) and first observations were reported by Zhang et al. 2020. Data from the radar will be available from June 25, 2019. The name of the associated hdw.dat file is hdw.dat.jme and the listing name for the radar is "Jiamusi East".
Congratulations to Dr. Zhang and her radar team!
Photo: Side view of the main array of the Jiamusi radar (Photo credit: Jiaojiao Zhang)

Simon Shepherd has announced that the Altitude Adjusted Corrected Geomagnetic Coordinates (AACGM-v2) model, originally developed to compare conjugacy of data from SuperDARN radars in the northern and southern hemispheres Baker and Wing, 1989, has been updated. In his words:

'With the recent release of the 13th generation International Geomagnetic Reference Field (IGRF-13) (https://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/IAGA/vmod/igrf.html) an update to AACGM-v2 is now available at http://superdarn.thayer.dartmouth.edu/aacgm.html

The update includes new AACGM-v2 coefficients that extend the date range to 2025 and small changes to the software to accommodate the new date range and coefficient files.

Note that small differences in the IGRF-13 coefficients will cause corresponding small changes in AACGM-v2 coordinates derived using the new model for dates beginning in 2010.'