5.1.2.1. CyclonePlotter: Basic Use Case

met_tool_wrapper/CyclonePlotter/CyclonePlotter.conf

Scientific Objective

Provide visualization of cyclone tracks on a global map (PlateCaree projection)

Datasets

No datasets are required for running this use case. Only output from running the MET Tool tc-pairs or the METplus tc pairs wrapper is required.

External Dependencies

You will need to use a version of Python 3.6+ that has the following packages installed:

• cartopy

• matplotlib

METplus Components

This use case does not utilize any MET tools

METplus Workflow

CyclonePlotter is the only tool called in this example. It processes the following run times:

Init: 2015-03-01_12Z

METplus Configuration

METplus first loads all of the configuration files found in parm/metplus_config, then it loads any configuration files passed to METplus via the command line with the -c option, i.e. -c parm/use_cases/met_tool_wrapper/CyclonePlotter/CyclonePlotter.conf

[dir]
## Dirs below used by cyclone_plotter_wrapper module.
# --------------------------------------------------
CYCLONE_PLOTTER_INPUT_DIR = {INPUT_BASE}/met_test/tc_pairs
CYCLONE_PLOTTER_OUTPUT_DIR = {OUTPUT_BASE}/cyclone

[config]
# ================================================
PROCESS_LIST = CyclonePlotter

## Config options below used by cyclone_plotter_wrapper module.
# -------------------------------------------------------------
##

#
# Specify the YMD of tracks of interest
#
CYCLONE_PLOTTER_INIT_DATE = 20150301

##
# only 00, 06, 12, and 18z init times are supported in NOAA website,
# so for consistency, these are the only options for METplus.
#
CYCLONE_PLOTTER_INIT_HR = 12 ;; hh format
CYCLONE_PLOTTER_MODEL = GFSO
CYCLONE_PLOTTER_PLOT_TITLE = Model Forecast Storm Tracks

##
#  Indicate the size of symbol (point size)
CYCLONE_PLOTTER_CIRCLE_MARKER_SIZE = 2
CYCLONE_PLOTTER_CROSS_MARKER_SIZE = 11

##
# Indicate text size of annotation label
CYCLONE_PLOTTER_ANNOTATION_FONT_SIZE = 3

##
# Resolution of saved plot in dpi (dots per inch)
# Set to 0 to allow Matplotlib to determine, based on your computer
CYCLONE_PLOTTER_RESOLUTION_DPI = 400


##
#  Turn on/off the generation of an ASCII output file listing all the
#  tracks that are in the plot.  This can be helpful in debugging or verifying
#  that what is plotted is consistent with the data.
#
CYCLONE_PLOTTER_GENERATE_TRACK_ASCII = yes

CYCLONE_PLOTTER_ADD_WATERMARK = False

MET Configuration

No MET configuration is needed to run the cyclone plotter wrapper.

Running METplus

This use case can be run as follows:

1. Passing in CyclonePlotter.conf then a user-specific system configuration file:

   run_metplus.py -c /path/to/METplus/parm/use_cases/met_tool_wrapper/CyclonePlotter/CyclonePlotter.conf \
                     -c /path/to/user_system.conf
   

2. Modifying the configurations in parm/metplus_config, then passing in CyclonePlotter.conf:

   run_metplus.py -c /path/to/METplus/parm/use_cases/met_tool_wrapper/CyclonePlotter/CyclonePlotter.conf
   

The former method is recommended. Whether you add them to a user-specific configuration file or modify the metplus_config files, the following variables must be set correctly:

• INPUT_BASE - Path to directory where sample data tarballs are unpacked (See Datasets section to obtain tarballs). This is not required to run METplus, but it is required to run the examples in parm/use_cases

• OUTPUT_BASE - Path where METplus output will be written. This must be in a location where you have write permissions

• MET_INSTALL_DIR - Path to location where MET is installed locally

Example User Configuration File:

[dir]
INPUT_BASE = /path/to/sample/input/data
OUTPUT_BASE = /path/to/output/dir
MET_INSTALL_DIR = /path/to/met-X.Y

NOTE: All of these items must be found under the [dir] section.

Expected Output

A successful run will generate output to both the screen and to the logfile:

INFO: METplus has successfully finished running.

Additionally, two output files are created. Refer to the value set for OUTPUT_BASE to find where the output data was generated. TCPairs output for this use case will be found in cyclone/201503 (relative to OUTPUT_BASE) and will contain files with the following format:

• 20150301.txt

• 20150301.png

Keywords

Note

CyclonePlotterUseCase