<html><head><style type='text/css'>p { margin: 0; }</style></head><body><div style='font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; color: #000000'><span>Thanks Jennifer! Yes, that's exactly the kind of information I need. I already had the idea that the key to the problem is the oacres() function. In fact, that's also the function that the recipe was using but the recipe wasn't very clear in explaining the purpose of wrf.dat and wrf.ctl. The GrADS documentation for the oacres() function wasn't very helpful for me either.</span><br><span id="e8e686dc-fd7c-4121-baec-e79fba4399a5"><br>I'll keep you posted on significant updates in our project. Again, thanks so much!<br><br>Best regards,<br><br>Nena<br><span name="x"></span><font color="#888888"></font><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></span><span name="x"></span><br></span><hr id="zwchr"><b>From: </b>"Jennifer Adams" <jma@cola.iges.org><br><b>To: </b>"GrADS Users Forum" <gradsusr@gradsusr.org><br><b>Sent: </b>Wednesday, September 22, 2010 10:24:23 PM<br><b>Subject: </b>Re: [gradsusr] Gridding and Plotting Station Data<br><br>Yaquiang: Please don't use the GrADS forum to promote MeteoInfo. <div><br></div><div>Nena: I haven't looked at the specific recipe you refer to; however, in order to draw a contour plot in GrADS that is based on station data, you use the oacres() function, which transforms the station data to a gridded field so that the contouring algorithm will work. The oacres() function requires a grid expression -- the data in the grid is ignored, it is just the grid information that is used to perform the transformation. My guess is that the wrf forecast data referred to in the recipe is merely there to provide a grid to interpolate to. You don't need WRF data to do this, you can create a dummy descriptor file that points to a fictitious data file but that should be sufficient for oacres() to work.</div><div><br></div><div>The dummy descriptor (foo.ctl) would look something like this: </div><div>dset ^foo.dat</div><div>options template </div><div>undef -9.99e8</div><div>title foo</div><div>xdef ...</div><div>ydef ...</div><div>zdef 1 linear 1 1</div><div>tdef 1 linear 1jan0001 1dy</div><div>vars 1</div><div>foo 0 99 foo</div><div>endvars</div><div><br></div><div>You would have to define the XDEF and YDEF entries to create a lat/lon grid that covers the area of your station observations, and has a resolution reasonably close to the density of your observational data. I would set the TDEF to match your station data set too. The 'options template' entry is necessary so that GrADS doesn't try to open foo.dat. You can open this dummy descriptor with GrADS, then use 'lon' or 'lat' (internally defined variables that contain the longitude/latitude values of the grid) as your grid expression in oacres. Your GrADS commands might look something like this: </div><div><br></div><div>ga-> open foo.ctl</div><div>ga-> open station.ctl</div><div>ga-> set gxout contour</div><div>ga-> d oacres(lon.1, var.2)</div><div><div><br></div><div>I hope this is the kind of help you were looking for. </div><div>--Jennifer</div><div><br></div><div><div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div>On Sep 22, 2010, at 6:00 AM, Yaqiang Wang wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote><div>You can use MeteoInfo software to visualize AWS observation data.<br>ASCII format data were also supported. The software could be<br>downloaded freely from the website <a href="http://www.esnips.com/web/MeteoInfo" target="_blank">http://www.esnips.com/web/MeteoInfo</a><br>. The documents on the website will help you to use it.<br><br>Yaqiang<br><br>2010/9/22 Nena Carina Española <<a href="mailto:nena@asti.dost.gov.ph" target="_blank">nena@asti.dost.gov.ph</a>>:<br><blockquote>Hi John. Thanks for the reply.<br></blockquote><blockquote><br></blockquote><blockquote>The recipe was derived from the operational procedure of Brazil and we<br></blockquote><blockquote>wanted to adopt a similar procedure for the Philippines. I am from the IT<br></blockquote><blockquote>sector so I'm really new to all of these. What I actually wanted to ask<br></blockquote><blockquote>about is the numerical model data itself. I don't have that. I only have<br></blockquote><blockquote>observed data from AWS network. Can I actually use the wrf.dat that came<br></blockquote><blockquote>with the recipe or do I have to create my own from WRF? :-)<br></blockquote><blockquote><br></blockquote><blockquote>What our team wants is to be able to visualize the hourly data we have for<br></blockquote><blockquote>temperature, humidity, pressure, wind speed, wind direction, solar<br></blockquote><blockquote>radiation, and hourly rain. But our priority is pressure, wind speed, and<br></blockquote><blockquote>wind direction. If you know of other techniques/recipes that I could follow<br></blockquote><blockquote>please let me know.<br></blockquote><blockquote><br></blockquote><blockquote>Thanks and BR,<br></blockquote><blockquote><br></blockquote><blockquote>Nena<br></blockquote><blockquote><br></blockquote><blockquote><br></blockquote><blockquote>On Tuesday, 21 September, 2010 07:40 PM, Huddleston, John wrote:<br></blockquote><blockquote><br></blockquote><blockquote>Nena<br></blockquote><blockquote><br></blockquote><blockquote>run 'grads -l'<br></blockquote><blockquote>open wrf.ctl<br></blockquote><blockquote>set gxout shaed<br></blockquote><blockquote>set csmooth on<br></blockquote><blockquote>d slvl.1<br></blockquote><blockquote><br></blockquote><blockquote>and you will see the background color as shown in the example<br></blockquote><blockquote><br></blockquote><blockquote>set lon -43.75 -43.1<br></blockquote><blockquote>set lat -23.1 -22.7<br></blockquote><blockquote>d slvl.1<br></blockquote><blockquote><br></blockquote><blockquote>and it zooms into the area where the data points can be plotted<br></blockquote><blockquote><br></blockquote><blockquote>John Huddleston, PhD<br></blockquote><blockquote><br></blockquote><blockquote>________________________________<br></blockquote><blockquote>From: <a href="mailto:gradsusr-bounces@gradsusr.org" target="_blank">gradsusr-bounces@gradsusr.org</a> [<a href="mailto:gradsusr-bounces@gradsusr.org" target="_blank">gradsusr-bounces@gradsusr.org</a>] On<br></blockquote><blockquote>Behalf Of Nena Carina Española [<a href="mailto:nena@asti.dost.gov.ph" target="_blank">nena@asti.dost.gov.ph</a>]<br></blockquote><blockquote>Sent: Tuesday, September 21, 2010 12:24 AM<br></blockquote><blockquote>To: GrADS Users Forum<br></blockquote><blockquote>Subject: [gradsusr] Gridding and Plotting Station Data<br></blockquote><blockquote><br></blockquote><blockquote>Hi Guys,<br></blockquote><blockquote><br></blockquote><blockquote>First of all, I'm not a meteorologist so pardon me if my questions here<br></blockquote><blockquote>might sound silly to you. :-)<br></blockquote><blockquote><br></blockquote><blockquote>I need help with Recipe-013: Gridding and Plotting Station Data. What I need<br></blockquote><blockquote>to do is to be able to plot contour maps from hourly AWS data, just like<br></blockquote><blockquote>what was done in Recipe-013. However, I won't be plotting just<br></blockquote><blockquote>precipitation. I'll just start out with pressure. Later on if I already know<br></blockquote><blockquote>the ins and outs of this recipe, I'll be creating plots for other variables<br></blockquote><blockquote>such as temperature, wind speed, and wind direction.<br></blockquote><blockquote><br></blockquote><blockquote>We have a team in charge of parsing the information from AWS and could feed<br></blockquote><blockquote>me data that's already been formatted to what Recipe-013 requires. Following<br></blockquote><blockquote>the recipe, I was able to create a control file and binary that GrADS could<br></blockquote><blockquote>read. What I don't understand is the wrf.dat and wrf.ctl that the recipe is<br></blockquote><blockquote>using. The recipe says it "contains any forecasted variable and, most<br></blockquote><blockquote>important, the information of the grid we want the station data to be<br></blockquote><blockquote>gridded to." Can someone explain this further to me? I was only asked to<br></blockquote><blockquote>plot actual data, no forecasting or whatsoever. :-)<br></blockquote><blockquote><br></blockquote><blockquote>Thanks and regards,<br></blockquote><blockquote><br></blockquote><blockquote>Nena<br></blockquote><blockquote><br></blockquote><blockquote><br></blockquote><blockquote>_______________________________________________<br></blockquote><blockquote>gradsusr mailing list<br></blockquote><blockquote><a href="mailto:gradsusr@gradsusr.org" target="_blank">gradsusr@gradsusr.org</a><br></blockquote><blockquote><a href="http://gradsusr.org/mailman/listinfo/gradsusr" target="_blank">http://gradsusr.org/mailman/listinfo/gradsusr</a><br></blockquote><blockquote><br></blockquote><blockquote><br></blockquote><blockquote>--<br></blockquote><blockquote>GRID OPERATIONS TEAM<br></blockquote><blockquote>Advanced Science & Technology Institute<br></blockquote><blockquote>Department Of Science & Technology<br></blockquote><blockquote>ASTI Bldg., C.P. Garcia Ave., Technology Park Complex<br></blockquote><blockquote>U.P. Campus, Diliman, Quezon City, PHILIPPINES 1101<br></blockquote><blockquote>Tel No: +63 2 4269760<br></blockquote><blockquote>Email: <a href="mailto:nena@asti.dost.gov.ph" target="_blank">nena@asti.dost.gov.ph</a><br></blockquote><blockquote>_______________________________________________<br></blockquote><blockquote>gradsusr mailing list<br></blockquote><blockquote><a href="mailto:gradsusr@gradsusr.org" target="_blank">gradsusr@gradsusr.org</a><br></blockquote><blockquote><a href="http://gradsusr.org/mailman/listinfo/gradsusr" target="_blank">http://gradsusr.org/mailman/listinfo/gradsusr</a><br></blockquote><blockquote><br></blockquote><blockquote><br></blockquote><br>_______________________________________________<br>gradsusr mailing list<br><a href="mailto:gradsusr@gradsusr.org" target="_blank">gradsusr@gradsusr.org</a><br>http://gradsusr.org/mailman/listinfo/gradsusr<br></div></blockquote></div><br><div> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><div style="word-wrap: break-word;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><div>--</div><div>Jennifer M. Adams</div><div>IGES/COLA</div><div>4041 Powder Mill Road, Suite 302</div><div>Calverton, MD 20705</div><div><a href="mailto:jma@cola.iges.org" target="_blank">jma@cola.iges.org</a></div><div><br class="khtml-block-placeholder"></div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"></span></span></div></span> </div><br></div></div><br>_______________________________________________<br>gradsusr mailing list<br>gradsusr@gradsusr.org<br>http://gradsusr.org/mailman/listinfo/gradsusr<br></div></body></html>