McIDAS Celebrates 30th
Anniversary
October 2003 marked the 30th anniversary of the McIDAS (Man
computer Interactive Data Access System) software. In
development since 1970 and first used to display and analyze
satellite data in 1973, it is still used by meteorological agencies
around the world to display and manipulate weather data.
We believe that McIDAS may be the oldest, continually used, and
supported software package in existence anywhere.
Early McIDAS
Photograph of hand-traced radar echoes overlaid on a McIDAS computer display of
an ATS-III visible satellite image.
Current McIDAS
Satellite-derived winds overlaid on a GOES-East water vapor image, with colorenhanced sea surface temperatures.