thundeR - a rawinsonde package for processing convective parameters and visualizing atmospheric profiles

ThundeR is a freeware R language package for sounding and hodograph visualization, and rapid computation of convective parameters commonly used in the research and operational prediction of severe convective storms. Core algorithm is based on C++ code seamlessly integrated into the R language within the RCPP library. This solution allows to compute a large number of thermodynamic and kinematic parameters within hundredths of a second per atmospheric profile. Such performance enables to process large numerical datasets such as reanalyses or weather prediction models for the research and operational purposes. ThundeR package has been developed since 2017 and is constantly updated with new features and parameters following requests from the community and the most up to date research findings on severe storm environments. The most recent version of the package (v1.1) allows users to calculate 201 parameters, manually specify mixing and altitude of a convective parcel, input a manual storm motion vector, and control plotting of CAPE, CIN, DCAPE and SRH polygons. An online tool available at www.rawinsonde.com allows users to use thundeR package in visualizing rawinsonde measurements and historical atmospheric profiles from ERA5 reanalysis since 1950. As of January 2023, thundeR package has been used in more than 20 peer-reviewed studies.