Problems reading BUFR file

dan.swank Dan.Swank at NOAA.GOV
Thu Sep 21 11:14:07 EDT 2006 

Jennifer reminded me that part of my problem was the flag in the header
section of my BUFR files was not set to properly indicate the
compression was in use. (yikes)  May want to beware of that as well.

This also caused bufrscan to throw out incoherent metadata values
(dates, etc.), in the messages when the compression was in use.

Hopefully Jennifer can verify for sure that GrADS can/can't handle this
compression.  If I remember right, it wasn't implemented.  Could be wrong.

-Dan


Bob Kuligowski wrote the following on 9/21/2006 9:10 AM:
> Diane et al.,
>
>    That didn't work, but it did get me looking more closely at the time
> information.  The header information suggests that the Julian day is in
> 0-04-043, the hour is in 0-04-004, and the minute in 0-04-005.  However,
> when I dump the full bufrscan output into a file called 'everything.exe'
> and do 'grep 0-04-043 everything.exe' to try to extract the Julian day
> information, I get all kinds of numbers including values above 365.  The
> same happens when doing 'grep 0-04-004' to get the hour information;
> some of the values are above 23.  This tells me that either (a) the BUFR
> file is really messed up; or (b) somehow bufrscan isn't able to read it
> correctly (which could be related to (a)).
>
>    So I'm going to try to contact the source of said file to see what's
> going on...thanks for your help!
>
> Cheers,
> Bob
>> Guess #2:
>>
>> If your ob times are not exactly 13:00Z01SEP2006, try a time window, eg:
>>
>> set time 12:30Z01sep2006 13:30z01sep2006
>>
>> If that doesn't work, hope that someone more knowledgeable chimes in
>> soon.
>>
>>    Diane
>>
>> Bob Kuligowski wrote:
>>> Diane,
>>>
>>>    Good catch...though, unfortunately, I still get the same result.
>>> Another of those cases where the process of debugging reveals bugs that
>>> one wasn't looking for in the first place :-)  Thanks!
>>>
>>> Cheers,
>>> Bob
>>>> Here's a quick guess...
>>>>
>>>> You have in your gribscan output:
>>>>
>>>>   0 05 002  (numeric) CLAT     Latitude (coarse accuracy)
>>>>   0 06 002  (numeric) CLON     Longitude (coarse accuracy)
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> but in your ctl file:
>>>>
>>>> xvar 6,1
>>>> yvar 5,2
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Try changing that xvar definition in your ctl file to:
>>>>
>>>> xvar 6,2
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>    Diane
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Bob Kuligowski wrote:
>>>>>    I am attempting to read and display a BUFR file in GrADS.  When I
>>>>> run 'bufrscan' the output is the attached 'headers.txt' file.  I tried
>>>>> to follow the directions in the BUFR entry of
>>>>> http://www.iges.org/grads/gadoc/gadocindex.html to produce a GrADS
>>>>> control file, which is attached as 'testbufr.ctl'.  I can open the
>>>>> .ctl
>>>>> file in GrADS with no problem, but when I try 'set gxout print'
>>>>> followed
>>>>> by 'd ' of any of the variables in the .ctl file, I always get
>>>>> "Printing
>>>>> stations -- 0 Reports -- Undef = -979".  My presumption is that the
>>>>> variables in the .ctl file are pointing at the wrong X and Y, but I'm
>>>>> using the files that I found in headers.txt.
>>>>>
>>>>>    Any thoughts?  Thanks in advance...
>>>>>
>>>>> Cheers,
>>>>>
>>>>> --
>>>>> Bob Kuligowski, Ph.D.
>>>>> Meteorologist
>>>>> NOAA/NESDIS/Center for Satellite Applications and Research (STAR)
>>>>>
>>>>> Mailing Address:
>>>>> E/RA2   RM 712 WWBG
>>>>> 5200 Auth Rd.
>>>>> Camp Springs, MD  20746-4304
>>>>>
>>>>> Phone:  (301) 763-8251x192
>>>>> Fax:    (301) 763-8580
>>>>>
>>>>> http://www.orbit.nesdis.noaa.gov/smcd/emb/bobk/
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>    < top of gribscan output snipped - dcs >
>>>>
>>>>> 3 61 118  (sequence)
>>>>>   0 04 043  (numeric) JULDAY   JULIAN DAY
>>>>>   0 04 004  (numeric) HOUR     Hour
>>>>>   0 04 005  (numeric) MINU     Minute
>>>>>   0 60 006  (numeric) SCSTTM   SCAN START TIME
>>>>>   0 60 003  (numeric) SCANUM   SCAN NUMBER
>>>>>   0 60 004  (numeric) NUMSCEN  NUMBER OF SCENES IN SCAN
>>>>>   0 05 002  (numeric) CLAT     Latitude (coarse accuracy)
>>>>>   0 06 002  (numeric) CLON     Longitude (coarse accuracy)
>>>>>   0 60 005  (numeric) SCENEN   SCENE NUMBER
>>>>>   0 60 093  (numeric) RF1      Rain Flag 1 (Odd Scan)
>>>>>   0 60 094  (numeric) RF2      Rain Flag 2 (Odd Scan)
>>>>>   0 60 162  (numeric) RR       Rain Rate
>>>>>   0 60 090  (numeric) SURFTG   SURFACE TAG
>>>>>   0 60 163  (numeric) LSURFTY  L Surface Type
>>>>>   0 60 175  (numeric) SNWDPTH  SNOW DEPTH
>>>>>   0 60 165  (numeric) LSOILM   L Soil Moisture
>>>>>   0 60 166  (numeric) LSURFTM  L Surface Temp
>>>>>   0 60 167  (numeric) ICSNEDG  Ice/Snow Edge
>>>>>   0 60 168  (numeric) ICONC    Ice Concentration
>>>>>   0 60 169  (numeric) ICEAGE   Ice Age
>>>>>   0 60 170  (numeric) OSWSF    Ocean Surface Wind Speed Flag
>>>>>   0 60 171  (numeric) OWV      Ocean Water Vapor
>>>>>   0 60 172  (numeric) OSWS     Ocean Surface Wind Speed
>>>>>   0 60 173  (numeric) OCW      Ocean Cloud Water
>>>>>   0 60 174  (numeric) OCA      Ocean Cloud Amount
>>>>>   0 60 164  (numeric) SSWC     Surf Snow Water Content
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>    < bulk of gribscan output snipped - dcs >
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> dset ^../Data/NPR.EDEB.SA.D06263.S0549.E0735.B1508081.NS
>>>>> title Test BUFR description file
>>>>> undef -979
>>>>> dtype bufr
>>>>> stid 1,198
>>>>> xvar 6,1
>>>>> yvar 5,2
>>>>> tvar yr 4,1 mo 4,2 dy 4,3 hr 4,4 mn 4,5
>>>>> stid 1 1
>>>>> tdef 1 LINEAR 13:00Z01SEP2006 1hr
>>>>> vars 20
>>>>> slon 0 6,2 Station longitude
>>>>> slat 0 5,2 Station latitude
>>>>> scenen   0 60,005 Scene number
>>>>> rf1      0 60,093 Rain flag 1
>>>>> rf2      0 60,094 Rain flag 2
>>>>> rainrate 0 60,162 Rain Rate
>>>>> surftg   0 60,090 Surface tag
>>>>> lsurty   0 60,163 L Surface type
>>>>> snwdpth  0 60,175 Snow depth
>>>>> lsoilm   0 60,165 L Soil moisture
>>>>> lsurftm  0 60,166 L Surface temp
>>>>> icsnedg  0 60,167 Ice/snow edge
>>>>> iconc    0 60,168 Ice concentration
>>>>> iceage   0 60,169 Ice age
>>>>> oswsf    0 60,170 Ocean surface wind speed flag
>>>>> owv      0 60,171 Ocean water vapor
>>>>> osws     0 60,172 Ocean surface wind speed
>>>>> ocw      0 60,173 Ocean cloud water
>>>>> oca      0 60,174 Ocean cloud amount
>>>>> sswc     0 60,164 Surf cnow water content
>>>>> endvars
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> Diane Stokes
>>>> Environmental Modeling Center
>>>> National Weather Service/NOAA
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Bob Kuligowski, Ph.D.
>>> Meteorologist
>>> NOAA/NESDIS/Center for Satellite Applications and Research (STAR)
>>>
>>> Mailing Address:
>>> E/RA2   RM 712 WWBG
>>> 5200 Auth Rd.
>>> Camp Springs, MD  20746-4304
>>>
>>> Phone:  (301) 763-8251x192
>>> Fax:    (301) 763-8580
>>>
>>> http://www.orbit.nesdis.noaa.gov/smcd/emb/bobk/
>>
>> --
>> Diane Stokes
>> Environmental Modeling Center
>> National Weather Service/NOAA
>
>
> --
> Bob Kuligowski, Ph.D.
> Meteorologist
> NOAA/NESDIS/Center for Satellite Applications and Research (STAR)
>
> Mailing Address:
> E/RA2   RM 712 WWBG
> 5200 Auth Rd.
> Camp Springs, MD  20746-4304
>
> Phone:  (301) 763-8251x192
> Fax:    (301) 763-8580
>
> http://www.orbit.nesdis.noaa.gov/smcd/emb/bobk/

--
Dan Swank <dan.swank at noaa.gov>
NOMADS Project:  Software & Data Management
Contractor - STG, Incorporated
Veach-Baley Federal Building
151 Patton Avenue
Asheville, NC 28801-5001
Phone: 828-271-4007

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