METplus Practical Session Guide (Version 5.0) | Session 2: Grid-to-Obs > MET Tool: Point-Stat

IMPORTANT NOTE: If you are returning to the tutorial, you must source the tutorial setup script before running the following instructions. If you are unsure if you have done this step, please navigate to the Verify Environment is Set Correctly page.

Point-Stat Tool: General

Point-Stat Functionality

The Point-Stat tool provides verification statistics for comparing gridded forecasts to observation points, as opposed to gridded analyses like Grid-Stat. The Point-Stat tool matches gridded forecasts to point observation locations using one or more configurable interpolation methods. The tool then computes a configurable set of verification statistics for these matched pairs. Continuous statistics are computed over the raw matched pair values. Categorical statistics are generally calculated by applying a threshold to the forecast and observation values. Confidence intervals, which represent a measure of uncertainty, are computed for all of the verification statistics.

Point-Stat Usage

View the usage statement for Point-Stat by simply typing the following:
point_stat
Usage: point_stat  
  fcst_file Input gridded file path/name
  obs_file Input NetCDF observation file path/name
  config_file Configuration file
  [-point_obs file] Additional NetCDF observation files to be used (optional)
  [-obs_valid_beg time] Sets the beginning of the matching time window in YYYYMMDD[_HH[MMSS]] format (optional)
  [-obs_valid_end time] Sets the end of the matching time window in YYYYMMDD[_HH[MMSS]] format (optional)
  [-outdir path] Overrides the default output directory (optional)
  [-log file] Outputs log messages to the specified file (optional)
  [-v level] Level of logging (optional)

At a minimum, the input gridded fcst_file, the input NetCDF obs_file (output of PB2NC, ASCII2NC, MADIS2NC, and LIDAR2NC, last two not covered in these exercises), and the configuration config_file must be passed in on the command line. You may use the -point_obs command line argument to specify additional NetCDF observation files to be used.