Python Plotting Scripts for WRF Output

The following scripts were developed during my undergraduate days at the University of Oklahoma. Co-developers included David John Gagne II and Timothy Supinie. These scripts will serve as part of the background for a future HootPy series of scripts to make python plotting more efficient and user-friendly.

These scripts have a few base package requirements in order to function properly:

• matplotlib 1.0 or greater
• Basemap 0.9 or greater
• Nio or scipy/netcdf -- some Python library for reading in netCDF files is necessary. Nio and scipy/netcdf have both been used in these scripts with only minor modifications to account for each.
• p_interp -- for plotting any upper-level data interpolated to pressure levels

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plot_wrf_maps (example images: surface| dewpoint| OLR) -- The basic plotting script that plots a variety of standard variables from the raw wrfout files without the need for vertical interpolation. Some command-line functionality is supported to streamline the process. Includes a few experimental variables (mostly severe weather indices) that are not fully supported yet and probably won't work.

coltbls -- plot_wrf_maps also requires the script coltbls.py as this contains all the color table definitions for making the plots. These definitions are user-editable and use the standard matplotlib LinearSegementedColormap format.

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plot_wrf_meteo (example image: meteo) -- Script to plot forecast and actual meteogram data using various sites of the Oklahoma Mesonet. The grid cell positions within the WRF domain of the location of interest must be known and added to the script before running it. This has not been tested with data outside the Oklahoma Mesonet.

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plot_wrf_skewt (example image: skewt) -- Designed to create a skew-T/log-P plot for the grid cell in the WRF domain specified in the script. This requires a pressure-interpolated wrfout file like the output from the p_interp script (see above). Experimental parcel traces are included in the code but not operational.

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plot_wrf_upa (example images: wind| vorticity| theta-e) -- The basic plotting script to plot a variety of standard upper-air variables at specified pressure levels. This script requires a pressure-interpolated wrfout file like the output from the p_interp script (see above).

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write_namelists -- Script for real-time WRF runs that will automatically rewrite the namelist.wps and namelist.input files in the same directory to reflect the specified start time on the current date. Used for automatically updating the namelists for each model run. Any changes made to the current namelist.wps and namelist.input files will be reflected in the new files the next time write_namelists is run.