GrADS and precip units

Tue Oct 25 11:53:53 EDT 2005

1 kg/m2 * 1000 g/kg / 1 g /cm3 (density of water) * 1 m2/10000 cm2 = 0.1 cm
= 1 mm

approximately, since the density of water depends on temperature, but close
enough given all the other sources of error in any model.

Michael Sestak
Fleet Numerical Meteorology and Oceanography Center
Monterey, CA

-----Original Message-----
From: Dan Leins [mailto:theedge981 at GMAIL.COM]
Sent: Tuesday, October 25, 2005 8:33 AM
To: GRADSUSR at LIST.CINECA.IT
Subject: GrADS and precip units

List,

I dumped the contents of an eta 48hr grib file using grib2ctl to a control
file so I could use GrADS to plot surface pressure and precip.  However I
couldn't help but notice that the units for Surface Convective Precip were
in kg/m^2.  Pardon my ignorance, as I've never actually plotted precip
contours before, but how does this convert into inches or even centimetes?
The values produced seemed suspiciously high, similar to something you might
see in a convective feedback situation, and I was wondering if there is some
sort of conversion factor I'm not aware of, or if I should literally expect
4" liquid equivalent in a 3 hr period?

Thanks,
Dan

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