METplus Practical Session Guide (Version 5.0) | MET Tool: Series-Analysis > Configure

Series-Analysis Tool: Configure

The behavior of Series-Analysis is controlled by the contents of the configuration file passed to it on the command line. The default Series-Analysis configuration file may be found in the data/config/SeriesAnalysisConfig_default file.

The configurable items for Series-Analysis are used to specify how the verification is to be performed. The configurable items include specifications for the following:

• The forecast fields to be verified at the specified vertical level or accumulation interval.
• The threshold values to be applied.
• The area over which to limit the computation of statistics - as predefined grids or configurable lat/lon polylines.
• The confidence interval methods to be used.
• The smoothing methods to be applied.
• The types of statistics to be computed.

You may find a complete description of the configurable items in the series_analysis configuration file section of the MET User's Guide. Please take some time to review them.

• Set the fcst dictionary to
  fcst = {
     field = [
        {
          name  = "APCP";
          level = [ "A3" ];
        }
     ];
  }

  To request the GRIB abbreviation for precipitation (APCP) accumulated over 3 hours (A3).

• Delete obs = fcst; and insert
  obs = {
     field = [
        {
          name  = "APCP_03";
          level = [ "(*,*)" ];
        }
     ];
  }

  To request the NetCDF variable named APCP_03 where its two dimensions are the gridded dimensions (*,*).

• Look up a few lines above the fcst dictionary and set
  cat_thresh = [ >0.0, >=5.0 ];

  To define the categorical thresholds of interest. By defining this at the top level of config file context, these thresholds will be applied to both the fcst and obs settings.

• In the mask dictionary, set
  grid = "G212";

  To limit the computation of statistics to only those grid points falling inside the NCEP Grid 212 domain.

• Set
  block_size = 10000;

  To process 10,000 grid points in each pass through the data. Setting block_size larger should make the tool run faster but use more memory.

• In the output_stats dictionary, set
     fho    = [ "F_RATE", "O_RATE" ];
     ctc    = [ "FY_OY", "FN_ON" ];
     cts    = [ "CSI", "GSS" ];
     mctc   = [];
     mcts   = [];
     cnt    = [ "TOTAL", "RMSE" ];
     sl1l2  = [];
     pct    = [];
     pstd   = [];
     pjc    = [];
     prc    = [];

  For each line type, you can select statistics to be computed at each grid point over the series. These are the column names from those line types. Here, we select the forecast rate (FHO: F_RATE), observation rate (FHO: O_RATE), number of forecast yes and observation yes (CTC: FY_OY), number of forecast no and observation no (CTC: FN_ON), critical success index (CTS: CSI), and the Gilbert Skill Score (CTS: GSS) for each threshold, along with the root mean squared error (CNT: RMSE).