SkewT 0.1.1

Plots and analyses atmospheric profile data

SkewT provides a few useful tools to help with the plotting and analysis of upper atmosphere data. In particular it provides some useful classes to handle the awkward skew-x projection (provided by Ryan May, see notes in source code and LICENSE.txt).

It’s most basic implementation is to read a text file of the format provided by the University of Wyoming’s website:

http://weather.uwyo.edu/upperair/sounding.html

Typical usage often looks like this:

#!/usr/bin/env python

from skewt import SkewT
sounding = SkewT.Sounding(filename="soundingdata.txt")
sounding.plot_skewt()

Alternatively you may input the required data fields in a dictionary. The dictionary must have as a minimum the fields PRES and TEMP corresponding to pressure (hPa) and temperature (deg C). Soundings will typically have a dew point temperature trace and wind barbs as well, so it’s best to include the dewpoint temp DWPT (deg C), wind speed SKNT (knots) and wind direction in degrees WDIR. Other fields may be included as per the docstring:

#!/usr/bin/env python

from skewt import SkewT
sounding = SkewT.Sounding(data=data_dict)
sounding.plot_skewt

Sounding Files

The format for the sounding files is very specific (sorry). You are best off using the example in “examples” as a template.

Contributors

The initial SkewX classes were provided by a fellow called Ryan May who was a student at OU. I have not made contact with Ryan other than to download his scripts and modify them for my own purposes.

Hamish Ramsay has promised to at least think about adding some extra diagnostics.