(GR2Analyst) International Radars

What you get

Weather Pulse carries 279 radars outside the United States alongside the US WSR-88D network: 155 across 23 European countries, 6 in France's overseas territories (Guadeloupe, Martinique, La Réunion and New Caledonia), 66 operated by Australia's Bureau of Meteorology, 32 operated by Environment Canada and 20 operated by the Japan Meteorological Agency. They are delivered as ordinary Level II volumes, so GR2Analyst opens them like any US radar. You get reflectivity and velocity, spectrum width where the radar measures it, and dual-polarization (ZDR, correlation coefficient, differential phase) at about 145 sites, including every Canadian radar, 21 Australian ones and 32 French ones. All of GR2Analyst's algorithms and 3-D tools are available.

Each radar has a four-character ID:

• European radars start with their country's first letter: NHUR (Hurum, Norway), DESS (Essen, Germany), FTRA (Trappes, France), PRAM (Ramża, Poland). Estonia's and Spain's radars start with E: EHAR (Harku), ETJV (Madrid).
• France's overseas radars start with F, like mainland France's: FLME (Le Moule, Guadeloupe), FDMT (Le Diamant, Martinique), FCRO (Colorado) and FPVS (Piton Villers) on La Réunion, FNMA (Nouméa) and FLFU (Lifou) in New Caledonia.
• Japanese radars use the Japan Meteorological Agency's own IDs: KASH (Tokyo), SAPP (Sapporo), NAGO (Nagoya).
• Canadian radars start with C followed by the last three letters of Environment Canada's own radar code: CSWL (Woodlands, Manitoba), CSKR (King City, Ontario), CSVD (Val d'Irène, Quebec). Two differ, because their letters were already taken: Franktown, Ontario is CCSF and Exeter, Ontario is CCSE.
• Australian radars start with A followed by three letters of the radar's name: AMEL (Melbourne), ASTH (Sydney, Terrey Hills), ABMS (Brisbane, Mt Stapylton), ATHR (Townsville, Hervey Range), APSE (Perth, Serpentine).

Set these up before 24 September 2026? Most European IDs changed that day (for example EHUR became NHUR). Import the current radar file again as described below, and use the new IDs. Any sites with the old IDs that remain in your list no longer receive data.

Added 6 October 2026: the six overseas French radars, and five more in mainland France: FMAU (Mont Maurel), FMCH (Moucherotte), FCBS (Colombis), FSRM (Saint-Rémy) and FNOY (Noyal). If you imported the radar file before then, import it again (step 1) and refresh your source (step 2) to get them.

Before you start

You need GR2Analyst 3.5.0.1 or later. That release reads the same radar file as GRLevel3, which is the file these steps use. Check your version with Help → About, and update if you are on an earlier one.

GR2Analyst then needs two things, and they are separate:

1. The radar file. GR2Analyst ships with a table of US radar positions only. A small file from us tells it where the other 279 radars are. It is the same file GRLevel3 uses, so if you run both programs you download it once and drop it on each.
2. Your Weather Pulse polling source. GR2Analyst learns which radars it can download from your source. A source added a while ago may still offer only the radars that existed then, so it needs refreshing.

Step 1: Import the radar file

1. Download customradars.gis.txt. In your browser choose Save link as… and save it somewhere you will keep it, such as your Documents folder. Any folder works.
2. Start GR2Analyst and let it finish loading.
3. Drag the downloaded file from File Explorer onto the GR2Analyst main window and let go.

The radars now appear in the site list. There are 279 of them, so the list is longer from now on; that is expected. There is nothing to install and no administrator rights are needed.

Keep the file where you saved it. When we add radars, download the new file over the old one and drop it again.

Step 2: Refresh your Weather Pulse source

1. Choose File → Configure Polling.

2. Check that your Weather Pulse source is in the list. It looks like this, with your own authcode in place of authcode:

   https://level2.weatherpulse.com/level2/authcode

   If it is missing, press Add and paste your Level 2 URL from the Gibson Ridge page of your account.

3. Tick Automatically refresh sources. GR2Analyst then downloads each source's radar list every time it starts, so radars we add later appear on their own.
4. Close the dialog and restart GR2Analyst. The refresh happens at startup.

Step 3: Open a radar

Choose a radar from the site list as you would any other, or type its ID. The first volume usually appears within a few minutes.

How often the radars update

• Europe, apart from France: a new volume every 5 minutes at most sites, up to 15 minutes at some. Each arrives a few minutes after the radar finishes it, depending on when the national service publishes.
• France, mainland and overseas: a new volume every 5 minutes, usually arriving less than a minute after the radar finishes it. A volume is labeled with the time its scan began, so it reads about 5 minutes old when it arrives, but its lowest tilt was scanned within the last minute.
• Canada: a new volume every 6 minutes. Each arrives 1 to 4 minutes after the radar finishes it, so GR2Analyst's Next Update timer can sit at 0:00 for a few minutes before each new volume. That is the publishing delay, not a fault.
• Australia: a new volume every 5 minutes at every radar, arriving shortly after the Bureau publishes it.
• Japan: a new volume every 5 minutes. The Japan Meteorological Agency publishes two volumes together every 10 minutes, so the newest is about 4 minutes old when it arrives and the one before it about 9.
• Dublin: Met Éireann publishes Dublin's velocity scan every 15 minutes, separately from its 5-minute reflectivity. Velocity therefore appears in one volume in three, as extra tilts carrying the time they were actually scanned. The volumes in between have reflectivity only.

If something is missing

What is different about this radar data

• Most of the European and Japanese radars, and two thirds of Australia's, are C-band; the WSR-88D is S-band. Canada's radars, Australia's city radars (Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth and others), France's five Mediterranean radars (Bollène, Nîmes, Collobrières, Opoul and Aléria) and its radars in Guadeloupe, Martinique and La Réunion are S-band like the WSR-88D, so this does not apply to them. Reflectivity and velocity are what the radar measured, but GR2Analyst's algorithms were built around S-band behavior. Treat rainfall estimates, hail detection and hydrometeor classification with care. C-band signal weakens in heavy rain, so echoes behind a strong storm can look weaker than they are, or disappear. Five French radars (FMAU, FMCH, FCBS, FSRM and FNOY) are X-band, whose signal weakens in rain faster still.
• The data is shown as the national services publish it. Their own clutter filtering is applied and we add none. On calm evenings, ground clutter near a radar or over mountains can remain visible, and GR2Analyst's storm algorithms can pick it up. France is the exception: Météo-France publishes its radars without clutter filtering, so we remove ground clutter from them ourselves.
• Scan strategies differ by country. GR2Analyst shows VCP 700 for these radars. The number is a label, not a WSR-88D scan strategy, and the Next Update timer may not count down for them. The elevation angles are the ones the radar actually scanned, from 1 to 20 tilts per volume depending on the radar (17 at every Canadian radar, from -0.3 to 24.4 degrees; 7 to 14 at the Australian ones, from 0.5 to 32 degrees). Australia's and France's radars scan from the top tilt down, so the lowest tilt is the newest.
• Resolution varies. Gate spacing runs from 75 m to 1 km. Most radars use 1-degree rays; France's use half-degree rays, a few others use them at some tilts, and Japan's use about 0.7 degrees.
• Japan's radars: reflectivity below about 0 dBZ is not published, so very light clear-air returns are absent. Velocity arrives already dealiased by the Japan Meteorological Agency, and the lowest velocity tilt is not included because its scan settings are not published.
• France's radars: each volume has 5 to 8 tilts. The lowest ones repeat every volume; the top one to three change from one volume to the next over a 15-minute cycle. Reflectivity and dual-pol come at half-degree, 240 m resolution, and velocity at 1 degree and 1 km. Velocity arrives already dealiased by Météo-France. Reflectivity is published in 1 dBZ steps and nothing below 0 dBZ, so very light clear-air returns are absent. Nouméa and Lifou publish no dual-pol. Differential reflectivity at Le Moule (FLME) reads about 2 to 3 dB high, from the radar's own calibration.
• Sources and attribution. European data comes from the national meteorological services through EUMETNET OPERA and the services' own open-data feeds, mostly under CC BY 4.0. French data, mainland and overseas, comes from Météo-France's radar API under Etalab's Open Licence 2.0 (Licence Ouverte). Japanese data comes from the Japan Meteorological Agency. Canadian data comes from Environment and Climate Change Canada, under the Open Government Licence – Canada. Australian data is © Commonwealth of Australia, Bureau of Meteorology.

Still stuck?

Open a ticket and tell us your GR2Analyst version (Help → About), the radar ID you tried, and whether the radar appears in your site list. Those three facts tell us straight away whether it is a radar file problem or a polling problem.