METplus Practical Session Guide (Version 5.0) | Session 6: Track and Intensity > MET Tool: TC-Pairs

TC-Pairs Tool: General

TC-Pairs Functionality

The TC-Pairs tool provides position and intensity information for tropical cyclone forecasts in Automated Tropical Cyclone Forecast System (ATCF) format. Much like the Point-Stat tool, TC-Pairs produces matched pairs of forecast model output and an observation dataset. In the case of TC-Pairs, both the model output and observational dataset (or reference forecast) must be in ATCF format. TC-Pairs produces matched pairs for position errors, as well as wind, sea level pressure, and distance to land values for each input dataset.

TC-Pairs Usage

View the usage statement for TC-Pairs by simply typing the following:

tc_pairs
Usage: tc_pairs  
  -adeck source Input ATCF format track files
  -edeck source Input ATCF format ensemble probability files
  -bdeck source Input ATCF format observation (or reference forecast) file path/name
  -config file Configuration file
  [-out_base] path of output file base
  [-log_file] name of log associated with tc_pairs output
  [-v level] Level of logging (optional)

At a minimum, the input ATCF format -adeck (or -edeck) source, the input ATCF format -bdeck source, and the configuration -config file must be passed in on the command line.

The -adeck, -edeck, and -edeck options can be set to either a specific file name or a top-level directory which will be searched for files ending in ".dat".