User’s Guide¶
Foreword: A note to METplus Wrappers users
This User’s Guide is provided as an aid to users of the Model Evaluation Tools (MET) and it’s companion package METplus Wrappers. MET is a suite of verification tools developed and supported to community via the Developmental Testbed Center (DTC) for use by the numerical weather prediction community. METplus Wrappers are intended to be a suite of Python wrappers and ancillary scripts to enhance the user’s ability to quickly set-up and run MET. Over the next year, METplus Wrappers will become the authoritative repository for verification of the Unified Forecast System.
It is important to note here that METplus Wrappers is an evolving software package. The first release of METplus Wrappers have occurred in 2017. This documentation describes the 3.0 release in February 2020. Intermediate releases may include bug fixes. METplus Wrappers is also be able to accept new modules contributed by the community. While we are setting up our community contribution protocol, please send email to: met_help@ucar.edu and inform us of your desired contribution. We will then determine the maturity of any new verification method and coordinate the inclusion of the new module in a future version.
This User’s Guide was prepared by the developers of the METplus Wrappers, including Dan Adriaansen, Minna Win-Gildenmeister, George McCabe, Julie Prestopnik, Jim Frimel, John Opatz, John Halley Gotway, Tara Jensen, Jonathan Vigh, Mallory Row, Christana Kalb, Hank Fisher, Lisa Goodrich, Lindsay Blank, and Todd Arbetter.
Bug Fixes for METplus Wrappers v3.0.1
Fixed {now} functionality in [INIT/VALID]_[BEG/END]
Fixed formatting for field level in StatAnalysis wrapper
Updated MODE Time Domain use cases to produce better results
New for METplus Wrappers v3.0
Moved to using Python 3.6.3
User environment variables ([user_env_vars]) and [FCST/OBS]_VAR<n>_[NAME/LEVEL/OPTIONS] now support filename template syntax, i.e. {valid?fmt=%Y%m%d%H}
Added support for python embedding to supply gridded input data to MET tools (PcpCombine, GridStat, PointStat (gridded data only), RegridDataPlane…
PcpCombine now supports custom user-defined commands to build atypical use case calls
Improved logging to help debugging by listing expected file path
PyEmbedIngester wrapper added to allow python embedding for multiple data sources
Added support for month and year intervals for [INIT/VALID]_INCREMENT and LEAD_SEQ
Addition of contributor/developer guide as part of documentation
Documentation moved online using GitHub Pages and completely renamed, PDF option TBD.
Bugfix: PcpCombine subtract mode will call add method with 1 file if processing accumulation data and the lead time is equal to the desired accumulation
Bugfix: PcpCombine add mode forecast GRIB input
Bugfix: PcpCombine sum mode no longer fails when input level is not explicitly specified
Model Evaluation Tools Plus (METplus) TERMS OF USE - IMPORTANT!
Copyright 2020, UCAR/NCAR, NOAA, and CSU/CIRA Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the “License”); You may not use this file except in compliance with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at
http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software distributed under the License is distributed on an “AS IS” BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the License for the specific language governing permissions and limitations under the License.
Citations
The citation for this User’s Guide should be:
Adriaansen, D., M. Win-Gildenmeister, G. McCabe, J. Prestopnik, J. Frimel, J. Opatz, J. Halley Gotway, T. Jensen, J. Vigh, M. Row, C. Kalb, H. Fisher, L. Goodrich, L. Blank, and T. Arbetter, 2020: The METplus Version 3.0 User’s Guide. Developmental Testbed Center. Available at: https://github.com/NCAR/METplus/releases.
Acknowledgments
We thank all the METplus sponsors including: DTC partners (NOAA, NCAR, USAF, and NSF), along with NOAA/Office of Atmospheric Research (OAR), NOAA/Office of Science and Technology Integration, NOAA/Weather Program Office (WPO, formerly Office of Weather and Air Quality), and the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL). Thanks also go to the staff at the Developmental Testbed Center for their help, advice,and many types of support. We released METplus Alpha in February 2017 and would not have made a decade of cutting-edge verification support without those who participated in DTC planning workshops and the NGGPS United Forecast System Strategic Implementation Plan Working Groups (UFS SIP WGs).