In preparing our students and also WMO RAV and RAII stakeholders in the effective use of the new generation satellite data during the National Himawari-8 Training Campaign I had used the EUMETRAIN ePort in the past. I love the archive and I have developed a nice fog case study using the Night Microphysics RGB product, a nice upper air PV case study using the Airmass RGB product and a nice desert dust storm case study using the Dust RGB product. I like the fact that the data loads quickly, that there is a long archive available and also that the participants are able to interrogate the new RGB products using the NWP and other observations that can be easily overlaid. This helps in the understanding of the products and it helps to stakeholders to gain an idea about how the new data fits into the forecasting process. You can see examples of this on our National Himawari-8 Training Campaign web page at http://www.virtuallab.bom.gov.au/training/hw-8-training/tutorials/ check in particular Tutorial Session 8 and 10 to 13. Please check out some of the pre-session links pertaining to the ePort as attached to these Tutorial Sessions.
The resources were particularly useful during the early stages of the Training Campaign when the Himawari-8 data was not yet operationally available. Also afterwards, whilst our Visual Weather visualisation software was still a little slow in displaying the Himawari-8 data.