Activity

We finally have something on GitHub!

https://github.com/WeatherTogether/model-charts/blob/master/500mbvort.gs

This is a model chart showing the absolute vorticity and geopotential height at 500 mb from the GFS model. I love this chart for getting an idea of the general flow throughout the atmosphere… there’s a reason this was the first chart I made.

This script ONLY displays the 3rd time step (forecast hour 6, or 00Z24Feb2017) of the 18Z23Feb2017 GFS. You will need to change both this and the captions below the picture manually in order to get the latest model charts and keep the captions accurate. I have comments in the script telling you how to do that. The vision is to eventually get everything automated and online so that we are a free and open-source WeatherBell, but one thing at a time.

GETTING STARTED

You can start by doing what I’ve been doing… reading all about Grads and putting together some charts as you go! I plan to use the charts I make in my blogs, and you are welcome to use them too!

I found a great blog with a variety of different Grads tutorials and scripts online… it’s pretty awesome and very readable.

http://gradsaddict.blogspot.com/

Here’s the “official” documentation for Grads. They also have a tutorial. http://cola.gmu.edu/grads/gadoc/gadoc.php

Once we’ve got a basic handle on this stuff, we can become a little more structured with our methodology – setting up certain domains, plotting certain levels, and eventually automating the whole process and putting it online. For now, let’s just make some charts and have fun!

DOWNLOADING GRADS

There are two different “flavors” of Grads, the official Grads package released by COLA and “OpenGrads,” which is hosted on Sourceforge and is a volunteer effor to enhance and extend the main Grads engine. I’ve used both and I recommend OpenGrads, it is much easier to install (at least on Linux), comes with a bunch of cool stuff, AND runs on Windows (the COLA grads does not).

OpenGrads: https://sourceforge.net/projects/opengrads/files/

The current OpenGrads Windows version is 2.0.2, and the current Linux/Mac OS X version is 2.1.0. If you have Linux or Mac, I suggest running Grads off that… 2.1.0 has some enhancements over 2.0.2. I installed Linux Mint on a USB and am using that for my Grads work.

tl;dr: making graphics with grads is really fun, you should try it!