[Met_help] Another Question

[John Halley Gotway]

Bob,

Take a look at the output Grid-Stat file naming convention.  You'll see
that it basically just consists of the forecast valid time and forecast
lead time.  If you rerun Grid-Stat using the same forecast times, the
output files will OVERWRITE any existing files.  The records will not just
be appended.

If you're verifying a different model with the same forecast times, I'd
suggest either of the following approaches:
   (1) Use the -out_dir command line argument to write the output to a
different directory.
   (2) Or in the Grid-Stat configuration file, the set "output_prefix" to
a string that will differentiate it from other output file.  The
output_prefix string is used in the output file names after the
"grid_stat" and before the timing information.

Either of those approaches should work to prevent you from overwriting
data you really want to keep.

Please also be aware that you're welcome to use environment variables in
your configuration file settings.  For example, you could set an
environment variable like "MODEL_NAME" to the current model you're
verifying:
   setenv MODEL_NAME `"LIS"`
And in the configuration file, set:
   model = ${MODEL_NAME};
   output_prefix = ${MODEL_NAME};

(Hopefully I have those quotes set correctly.)  That way, you'd be able to
use exactly the same configuration file for both models and just set the
MODEL_NAME environment variable appropriately before running Grid-Stat.

Thanks,
John

> John, When I run the grid_stat verification on a different version of
> the model, will the verification data be added to the existing out files
> as new records or will they overwrite the existing files?  The model
> name is different for second runs.
>
>
>
> Thanks
>
>
>
> Bob
>
>