Model Evaluation Tools (MET) | Input Data

NCEP Model Datasets

• NOAA National Operational Model Archive & Distribution Systems (NOMADS) Home Page: NOMADS Home
• NOAA National Operational Model Archive & Distribution Systems (NOMADS) Data Access: NOMADS Data
• Recent NCEP Model FTP Site: NCEP Model Data

Gridded Observations Of Precipitation

• NCEP National StageII Precipitation Analysis: StageII Precipitation
• NCEP National StageIV Precipitation Analysis: StageIV Precipitation
• NASA TRMM Precipitation Analysis*:
  • *NOTE Registration to Earthdata is mandatory for accessing this data.
  • ASCII Data via GIOVANNI
    • 3-hour Accumulations 3B42 V7
    • Daily Accumulations 3B42 V7 derived
    • After logging in, follow these instructions to authorize access to TRMM data.
    • Use the trmm2nc.R R-script to reformat ASCII data into a NetCDF format that MET can read.

Gridded Analysis Products

• National Digital Forecast Database (NDFD): NCEP Real-Time Mesoscale Analysis (RTMA) Products

SURFRAD (Surface Radiation) Point Observations

• Support for SURFRAD added in METv4.1 to the ASCII2NC tool.
• NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory (ESRL) SURFRAD Network - archive starting 1995:
  http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/grad/surfrad
  Data: ftp://aftp.cmdl.noaa.gov/data/radiation/surfrad

PrepBufr Point Observations

• NCEP NOMADS Site:
  • PrepBufr for GDAS (Global) - 1 month buffer:
    http://nomads.ncep.noaa.gov/pub/data/nccf/com/gfs/prod
  • Data: gdas.YYYYMMDD/gdas1.tHHz.prepbufr.nr
  • PrepBufr for NDAS (North America) - 1 to 2 day buffer:
    http://nomads.ncep.noaa.gov/pub/data/nccf/com/nam/prod
    Data: ndas.YYYYMMDD/ndas.tHHz.prepbufr.tmHH.nr
• NCEP FTP Site:
  • PrepBufr for GDAS (Global) - several recent days of data:
    ftp://ftpprd.ncep.noaa.gov/pub/data/nccf/com/gfs/prod
  • PrepBufr for NDAS (North America) - several recent days of data:
    ftp://ftpprd.ncep.noaa.gov/pub/data/nccf/com/nam/prod
• NCDC NOMADS Site:
  • PrepBufr for GDAS (Global) - several recent months of data:
    http://nomads.ncdc.noaa.gov/data/gdas
• NCAR CISL Site:
  • DS337.0: NCEP PrepBufr ADP Global Upper Air and Surface Observations - archive starting May 1997:
    http://rda.ucar.edu/datasets/ds337.0
  • DS337.0 Subset: Interactive tool for running PB2NC over a specified time period and geographic region:
    http://rda.ucar.edu/datasets/ds337.0/index.html#forms/337_subset.php?_da=y

*** NOTE: The quality flag values for surface observations in GDAS PrepBufr files are set to a value of 9 to prevent them from being used in the data assimilation process. To retain them in the PB2NC tool, the quality mark threshold in the configuration file must be set to at least 9.