/PyIGRA

Small package to download and extract data from the IGRA2 data set.

Primary LanguagePython

Currently testing against python 2.7, python 3.4, 3.5, and 3.6 (see travis config). Build Status

The PyIGRA Package

The National Centres for Environmental Information provides a large global archive for vertical soundings also known as radiosondes. PyIGRA downloads and extracts data from the Integrated Global Radiosonde Archive data set and prepares them in a more handy data format.

NOTE (2017): Slightly changed output format. The data set provides information about the nominal time (date/time when the sounding was planned) and a release time (actual release time). In an earlier version I've tried to combine them in a simple way which was not always correct. I've decided to return the full information.

  • NOMINAL: nominal date/hour of the sounding (format yyyymmddHH). HH can be 99 (missing).
  • RELEASE: release time, format is HHMM (hour/minute). Can be 0000 trough 2359. If minute is missing the last two digits are 99. If both, hour and minute is missing, a 9999 is returned.

For more details please read the data set format description file.

Package Installation

Clone git repository and install the package via:

   git clone https://github.com/retostauffer/PyIGRA.git PyIGRA
   python setup.py install

Or directly install via github:

   pip install git+https://github.com/retostauffer/PyIGRA.git

You may use sudo python ... or sudo pip install ... depending on your system. Requires the additional python module ConfigParser.

Using the PyIGRA Package

There is a script called PyIGRA_test.sh which provides an example of the main functionality of the PyIGRA package

   # Searching for a station, in this case Innsbruck
   PyIGRA_search --id inns

   # Should print "AUM00011120  47.2603   11.3439  581.0    INNSBRUCK-FLUGHAFEN ...
   # Where the first part (AUM00011120) is the ID we need to download the data
   PyIGRA --id AUM00011120 -o test1.txt
   PyIGRA --id AUM00011120 -p PRESSURE,TEMPERATURE -o test2.txt

   # Additional arguments:
   # For testing/development: only print the first 2 entries
   PyIGRA --id AUM00011120 -l 2

   # Keep zip file after download. If PyIGRA is called again (and the
   # zip file exists on disc) no download will be required.
   PyIGRA --id AUM00011120 --keep

   # Change output format (only extract TEMPERATURE and PRESSURE
   PyIGRA --id AUM00011120 --parameters TEMPERATURE,PRESSURE

PyIGRA_seach is reading the latest station list and can be used to get the proper station identifier (-i/--id) needed for the PyIGRA executable. PyIGRA is downloading a zip file from the ftp server, extracts the data, and outputs the data in a new format. In this case the data will be piped into the output file (-o/--output) as specified in the script.

INFORMATION

  • Autor: Reto Staufferuibk.ac.at
  • Date: 2019-04-05
  • License: GPL-2

A detailed description of the IGRA2 data format:

  • ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/igra/igra2-list-format.txt (station list format)
  • ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/igra/data/igra2-data-format.txt (data format)

Station list used by PyIGRA_search:

Direct data access: