ASCII2NC Tool: General
ASCII2NC Functionality
The ASCII2NC tool reformats ASCII point observations into the intermediate NetCDF format that Point-Stat and Ensemble-Stat read. ASCII2NC simply reformats the data and does much less filtering of the observations than PB2NC does. ASCII2NC supports a simple 11-column format, described below, the Little-R format often used in data assimilation, surface radiation (SURFRAD) data, Western Wind and Solar Integration Studay (WWSIS) data, and AErosol RObotic NEtwork (Aeronet) data. Future version of MET may be enhanced to support additional commonly used ASCII point observation formats based on community input.
MET Point Observation Format
The MET point observation format consists of one observation value per line. Each input observation line should consist of the following 11 columns of data:
- Message_Type
- Station_ID
- Valid_Time in YYYYMMDD_HHMMSS format
- Lat in degrees North
- Lon in degrees East
- Elevation in meters above sea level
- Variable_Name for this observation (or GRIB_Code for backward compatibility)
- Level as the pressure level in hPa or accumulation interval in hours
- Height in meters above sea level or above ground level
- QC_String quality control string
- Observation_Value
It is the user's responsibility to get their ASCII point observations into this format.
ASCII2NC Usage
View the usage statement for ASCII2NC by simply typing the following:
| Usage: ascii2nc | ||
| ascii_file1 [...] | One or more input ASCII path/filename | |
| netcdf_file | Output NetCDF path/filename | |
| [-format ASCII_format] | Set to met_point, little_r, surfrad, wwsis, or aeronet | |
| [-config file] | Configuration file to specify how observation data should be summarized | |
| [-mask_grid string] | Named grid or a gridded data file for filtering point observations spatially | |
| [-mask_poly file] | Polyline masking file for filtering point observations spatially | |
| [-mask_sid file|list] | Specific station ID's to be used in an ASCII file or comma-separted list | |
| [-log file] | Outputs log messages to the specified file | |
| [-v level] | Level of logging | |
| [-compress level] | NetCDF compression level |
At a minimum, the input ascii_file and the output netcdf_file must be passed on the command line. ASCII2NC interrogates the data to determine it's format, but the user may explicitly set it using the -format command line option. The -mask_grid, -mask_poly, and -mask_sid options can be used to filter observations spatially.
