upaplot

Sections

• NAME
• SYNOPSIS
• PARAMETERS
• DESCRIPTION
• EXAMPLES
• FILES
• SEE ALSO

NAME

upaplot - Upper air plotting

SYNOPSIS

upaplot [parameters...] filename

PARAMETERS

DESCRIPTION

This program plots upper air data on a background map. The input to the program is a upper air converted file produced by the prog:upadec program. Then, based on a plot domain and a variable selected by the user, a plot is generated. Overlay plots, contour plots and loops can also be generated if the appropriate options are set.

The programs starts off by prompting the user for input converted file name.  The user may specify the input file either via the command line of through the current resource. The input naming convention is specified by the upa_cvt tag but this can be changed with the in_file resource. To generate a loop, the num_hour resource can be specified. This will tell the program to loop through this number of hours.

Next, the program prompts the user for the vertical level to plot. This is done through a level menu which has predefined levels and a prompt so the user can specify a level.  The level resource can also be used. The levels are set up with the upairwx.lev file.

The domain defaults to the contiguous US unless changed through the plot_domain resource. The domain can be interactively changed using the mouse once the plot has been generated.

Next, the city database is read in and a cross-reference table is setup. Since converted data is not saved with location information, the program will refer to this table to location each station in the input file.

The program will now prompt the user for the particular output variable to plot. The program will show a menu of commonly used variables but many more are defined internally by the program and in the upairwx.var file. The internal variables are:

These parameters can be accessed by name if they have not been redefined in the upairwx.var file. Otherwise, prepending a "+" to the variable name will guarantee these variables will appear.

There are several derived variables from this list which are defined in the upairwx.var file. These include composite plots, overlay plots and computed grids.

The program will now open the graphics window and start processing the data. The user will be prompted for the output device. Then the converted file is opened and data read in. Any additional computations are performed and the data are plotted. The background map will plot first unless the output is a color fill contour in which the map plots last. If a simple plot is specified such as "temp", the data will be plotted to 0 decimal places on the map. Formatting of the number can be done with the plot_format resource.  Composite plots can either be specified with the variable resource (.var file, resource file, command line or variable prompt).  The variable resource allows the user to control much of the data formatting.  

When the plot is complete, output can be saved to a GIF image file, spooled to the printer or the plot can be zoomed.  When zooming the image, the plot will redraw to the new domain.  It will also add more stations to the plot depending on the size of the domain. When the user is finished with the plot, the enter key can be hit which closes the window and returns the user to the variable prompt.

Contour/Vector Plots

By default, this program plots data but it can produce grids that can either be contoured or plotted as vectors or streamlines. By specifying the plot_type resource to a contour or vector type, the program will generate gridded fields rather than plotting the data.  The gridding process uses an objective analysis scheme to produce the grids. The parameters for this process are specified in the object_param resource. Once the grids have been created, the maximum and minimum of the grid are displayed for the user to pick an appropriate contour interval. Then, the contour or vector plot will display in much the same fashion as for the data plot.

There are several plot types.  For contour plots, there is:

• ln - line contours
• dln - dashed line contours
• ndln - negative dashed line contours. All contours less than 0 are dashed. The breakoff can be reset with the con_base resource.
• cf - color fill contours.  These are contours where the areas between the contour lines are filled with a progressive color scheme. By default, this is a 15 color scale in which the colors wrap around if there are more than 15 color level.  The color scheme can be set by the color_fill resource.

For vectors:

• vect -- vectors/arrows
• strm -- streamlines
• barb -- wind barbs

Output Files

By default, this program does not produce output files.  If a raw or grid file output is desired, use the out_file resource to enable this.  By default, this will create a WXP ASCII raw or grid file depending on the plot type.  The out_file can be a filename, a file tag (lookup in file name convention file) or a name convention (with wildcards). The output can be GIF file by specifying gif as the file type. It may be desirable to turn plotting of when producing output files. To do this, specify none for the plot_type resource.

EXAMPLES

upairwx -cu=la -le=850 -va=all -de=d

This plots a 850 mb composite plot containing temperature, dewpoint, geopotential height and winds for the contiguous US.

   upairwx -cu=la -le=850-500mb -va=temp -de=d

This plots the mean temperature for the layer of 850 to 500 mb.

   upairwx -cu=la -le=320k -va=allp -de=d

This plots a composite plot for the 320 K isentropic surface. In this case, the composite plot includes the pressure, not the height.

   upairwx -cu=la -le=700mb -va=temp -of=raw -pl=none

This will generate raw file based on the upa_raw name convention.  A specific filename can be used instead of raw.

   upairwx -cu=la -le=100m_ag -va=temp -pl=cf -in=2 -de=d

This will produce a contour plot of 100 meter above ground temperatures.  Without the "-pl=cf", the program will just plot the temperature data.

FILES

• upa.cty - the surface station location database file
• upairwx.lev - the level menu
• upairwx.var - the variable menu and definitions

SEE ALSO

Last updated November 2013