[Met_help] Running pb2nc on NCEP precip data

[John Halley Gotway]

Joe,

The stage2 data is a gridded analysis of precipitation.  It is a gridded GRIB file, not a PREPBUFR point observation file.  So you don't need to run it through the PB2NC tool - that's only for 
PREPBUFR files.

So you'd like to compare your gridded forecast file to a gridded Stage2 analysis file.  In MET, you can do grid-to-grid verification using the Grid-Stat tool and/or the MODE tool.

Please check the MET User's Guide for instructions on running these tools, or refer to the MET online tutorial: http://www.dtcenter.org/met/users/support/online_tutorial/index.php

Let me know if you run into any more problems.

Thanks,
John

Joe Galewsky wrote:
> Hello:
> 
> I have successfully used MET on my forecasts using the NDAS prepbufr 
> data provided by NCEP.  However, I can't get it to run successfully on 
> the NCEP Stage II precipitation data.  I pull the data from:
> ftp://ftpprd.ncep.noaa.gov/pub/data/nccf/com/hourly/prod/nam_pcpn_anal.20080723/ 
> 
> 
> and I can use the g1print utility to see that the precipitation data is 
> in the file (GRIB code 61).  After I re-block the data using cwordsh, I 
> get the error message:
> 
>  ~/METv1.1/bin/pb2nc ST2ml2008072203.Grb_block ST2ml2008072203.nc 
> PB2NCConfig_default
> Reading Config File:    PB2NCConfig_default
> Creating NetCDF File:   ST2ml2008072203.nc
> Reading PrepBufr File:  ST2ml2008072203.Grb_block
> 
>  +++++++++++++++++++++++WARNING+++++++++++++++++++++++++
>  BUFRLIB: OPENBF - INPUT BUFR FILE IN UNIT           11  IS EMPTY
>  +++++++++++++++++++++++WARNING+++++++++++++++++++++++++
> 
> ***WARNING*** process_pbfile() -> No PrepBufr messages to process in 
> file: ST2ml2008072203.Grb_block
> 
> 
> ERROR: write_netcdf_hdr_data() -> No PrepBufr messages retained. Nothing 
> to write.
> 
> I get this message regardless of the use of cwordsh - (i.e. it doesn't 
> seem to matter if I apply cwordsh to the data from NCEP).
> 
> Any suggestions on how to get this data processed by pb2nc?
> 
> thx,
> 
> Joe Galewsky
> 
>