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WINGRIDDS Blog: http://wingridds.blogspot.com/
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Home of WINGRIDDS and PCGRIDDS32
What are WINGRIDDS and PCGRIDDS32???
WINGRIDDS is a Microsoft Windows 32-bit implementation of the DOS-based PCGRIDDS written back in the early 1990s.
PCGRIDDS32 is a 32-bit program, however, it is not a full Windows, ‘point-and-click’ GUI program. PCGRIDDS32 stands for Personal Computer based GRidded Interactive Display and Diagnostic System. WINGRIDDS is the full MS Windows compliant ‘point-and-click’ GUI version which stands for WINdows based GRidded Interactive Display and Diagnostic System. With the release of WINGRIDDS, PGRIDDS32 development has frozen and will not be enhanced or improved in any way.
WINGRIDDS/PCGRIDDS32 is a software package that allows the user to view meteorologically significant fields of gridded observation analysis and numerical weather prediction model output (GRIB files). The fields are displayed in either contour or vector format, whichever is appropriate for a particular field. This package also allows the user to extract a variety of information from numerous meteorological diagnostic parameters computed from the gridded data fields.
WINGRIDDS offers an amazing variety of commands to view and manipulate observation and gridded meteorological data. Included with WINGRIDDS are a host of diagnostic functions and commands to perform such operations as compute advection, divergence, take differences between fields, multiply a scalar by a constant, etc. - the list is extensive. The WINGRIDDS user interface allows one to enter various combination commands from a command-line or select through a menu a long list of pre-defined command macros or scripts which have been written to compute such quantities as moisture convergence, 850 mb theta-E advection, Q-vectors, scalar frontogenesis, Velocity Potential, etc.
The flexibility of WINGRIDDS allows the package to meet the needs of users with a wide range of skills and requirements. The novice can quickly learn to display a wide variety of predefined products using the WINGRIDDS Menu system. More advanced users can develop specialized products to meet their individual needs using the programmable WINGRIDDS Command language, including the creation of customized menu options to meet specific user needs.
This page is, at the time, very basic and is my first try at Web authoring. This will be the central place where updates to WINGRIDDS are released so stay tuned!! WINGRIDDS has been and will be freeware.
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There are now WINGRIDDS Tutorial videos on YouTube. I will be adding new videos over time so for more in-depth info about how WINGRIDDS works, search "WINGRIDDS Tutorial" and 'Subscribe'
Hope you find them helpful.
Thank you for your support and pass the word about WINGRIDDS!!!
Jeff Krob
NOAA/NESDIS
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DONATIONS
This is something new...I am collecting money to purchase an upgrade to a software package I use in developing WINGRIDDS . Up to this point, I have purchased the majority of the software development packages on my own with my own funds.
Please feel free to donate as you see WINGRIDDS has been beneficial to you. Remember, WINGRIDDS is FREEWARE!!!
Thank you for your support!!
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DOWNLOADS
WINGRIDDS v6.0 has been released!!! See below the images for download information.
Here are some teaser screen shots of what WINGRIDDS can do...(click for full images)
FYI - Here is a zipped file many have asked for containing the command macros & color look-up-tables used to create some of the screen shots used above (Thanks Kevin McBride!!)
The NCEP International Desk is using WINGRIDDS in their training of international meteorologists and have a website featuring WINGRIDDS graphics from diagnostic algorithms they have created
www.wpc.ncep.noaa.gov/international/wng/
WINGRIDDS
Here are just a few things WINGRIDDS can do:
1) WINGRIDDS can display and animate Sounding (Skew-T, Telphigram & Stuve plots) and Hodograph plots of both model and observation grid-point data on Station ID, Lat/Lon or Grid-point locations.
2) WINGRIDDS can create BUFKIT data files on Station ID, Lat/Lon or Grid-point locations.
3) WINGRIDDS can process and display forward and backward Trajectories on both pressure and isentropic surfaces.
4) WINGRIDDS can process and display Ensemble Probabilities GRIB data from NCEPs SREF model.
5) WINGRIDDS can process and display native RAP (Rapid update Cycle) Hybrid-B surfaces.
6) WINGRIDDS can display both the standard and Hi Rez NCEP-issued ASUS Frontal Position data files.
7) WINGRIDDS can perform real-time grid data interpolation for map projections of Lat/Lon, Lambert Conformal and Polar Stereographic and allows the user to create customized grid projections to map the data to.
8) The Observation ingest utility OBS2PCG32 will now ingest & process observation BUFR-formatted files which include METAR & Marine obs, Upper-Air RAOBs, NEXRAD VAD Winds, Profiler obs, Polar satellite and Geostationary satellite sounding obs, satellite-based cloud-track wind obs, QuickScat satellite surface winds, etc.
9) WINGRIDDS has both a 30-year (1985-2015) and 60-year (1955-2015) climatology database for performing anomaly calculations.
10) WINGRIDDS has a variety of hi resolution background maps as well as new individual country province maps which can be plotted in various color/line widths.
11) WINGRIDDS will plot data on Potential Vorticity surfaces.
12) WINGRIDDS can plot data via masking command to either allow data to be plotted (POSMASK) if it matches certain parameters or block data from being plotted (NEGMASK) if it matches certain parameters
13) WINGRIDDS has over 100 new additional diagnostic commands which include new calculations associated with Velocity Potential and Stream Function diagnostics.
14) WINGRIDDS has 1600 pre-defined command scripts included to perform a variety of display's and calculate complex diagnostic function.
15) WINGRIDDS has over 2800 pre-defined and up-to-date GRIB download scripts to download a variety of GRIB model files from the internet.
16) WINGRIDDS documentation has been overhauled to show commands more clearly, has instructions for stand-alone Workstation/Server configurations and a Troubleshooting section to help solve common problems associated with GRIB downloading and processing.
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Several users began reporting that WINGRIDDS would crash when trying to open a data file. Luckily this issue started to happen with me as well. After several months of investigation & troubleshooting, it was found both the free and subscription versions of the antivirus program AVAST performed an update in November or December and this update impacted the operation of WINGRIDDS. The removal of AVAST allowed full WINGRIDDS operations. Now, I have another PC with AVAST on it…but it works fine. I also noticed that Microsoft Windows 10 updates have not been updating on that computer so that may have something to do with it as well. I understand computer security is important and I have switched to the free Bitdefender Antivirus. You are free to pick and choose your own security software…but make sure it does not crash WINGRIDDS is the process ;-)
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NOTICE ** NOTICE ** NOTICE ** NOTICE
Since Windows 7 (32 & 64), there has been a bug that can cause the WINGRIDDS operations to temporarily appear to stall and become unresponsive till the operation is done. This is usually seen when the user is drawing many Hi-Rez map backgrounds. WINGRIDDS will begin to draw the maps but after about 5 seconds the draw operation will freeze until all requested maps are drawn then normal operations will continue but with a partially drawn map display. This effect is also seen in other operations.
It is not known what the cause of this bug is but the work-around is as follows:
In Windows Explorer, go to the drive/directory where WINGRIDDS is located and Right-Click on the WINGRIDDS.EXE icon and select ‘Properties’ at the bottom of the Pop-Up menu. Within the Properties dialog, select the ‘Compatibility’ tab at the top. Within the ‘Compatibility mode’ section, “check” the ‘Run this program in compatibility mode’. It does not seem to matter which Windows version you choose (even Windows 7 works) but that box must be checked for reliable and complete WINGRIDDS operations.
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WINGRIDDS v6.00 Release
If you do not have at least WINGRIDDS v5.0, it is best to just uninstall the WINGRIDDS version you have, download the complete installation & reinstall. Of course, if you are a PCGRIDDS32 user or are new to the whole program, just download the complete installation file and follow the installation directions in the WINGRIDDS User Guide.
So give it a try and see the future of GRIB display and diagnostics!!
WINGRIDDS Version 6.0 Complete Installation File
For those users who either have WINGRIDDS v5.0 or greater already installed, just download and unzip the WINGRIDDS V5 - V6.0 Update file and unzip it in the WINGRIDDS directory.
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WINGRIDDS v6.14 Update
This is to announce the release of WINGRIDDS v6.14 Update which has an important updates for WINGRIDDS. To install, download the ZIP file and unzip in the WINGRIDDS directory. Please read the Release Notes for full details of all information.
WINGRIDDS Release v6.14 Update
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WINGRIDDS Documentation
WINGRIDDS Documentation (online)
(If Needed)
Microsoft Installer 2.0 for Win 95, 98, ME
Microsoft Installer 2.0 for Win NT, 2000, XP
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PCGRIDDS32 Version 3.3
PCGRIDDS32 V 3.3 is the last operational release of PCGRIDDS32. This release, which is a culmination of the previous beta testing, incorporates two major improvements as well as many bug fixes. The two improvements are 1) GRIB2 file processing for GRIB2PCG32, NGRB2PCG32 and NMOSGRB2PCG32 and 2) Ensemble GRIB processing for GRIB2PCG32 and NGRB2PCG32. Please read the release notes for details concerning these improvements as well as the listing of bug fixes.
To install the PCGRIDDS32 Complete file, download the zip file and, using Winzip or some other unzip program, unzip the file from the root directory on the hard drive which you wish to operate PCGRIDDS32 from. While unzipping the file, the directory PCGRIDDS32 and all subdirectories will be created.
To install the PCGRIDDS32 Executable zip file, download the zip file and, using Winzip or some other unzip program, unzip the file from within the PCGRIDDS32 directory.
Enjoy!!
PCGRIDDS32 V3.3 04-04-2007 Complete
PCGRIDDS32 V3.3 04-04-2007 Executables
Hi Resolution Maps (Restored!!!)
PCGRIDDS32 Utilities Update 01-10-2008
For all you die-hard PCGRIDDS32 fans out there, an updated version PCGRIDDS32 GRIB ingest utilities (NGRB2PCG32, NMOSGRB2PCG32 & GRIB2PCG32) is available. All of the GRIB ingest utilities have been converted to handle GRIB2.
On 01-08-2008, the NWS GRIB ingestor NGRB2PCG32 needed a quick bug fix for proper operation dealing with GRIB2 grid 003 (Global Lat/Lon) data being up-side-down.
On 01-10-2008, the WAFS GRIB ingestor GRIB2PCG32 needed an emergency bug fix for proper operation dealing with WAFS GRIB2 messages which were less than 1000 bytes and causing the utility to crash.
Download the PCGRIDDS32 Utilities file for the new version.
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PCGRIDDS32 Documentation
PCGRIDDS32 Documentation (online)
Thanks to Mike Davison at NCEP International Desk for providing these Spanish translations:
Spanish PCGRIDDS32 Release Notes
Spanish GRIB2PCG32 Release Notes
Spanish NGRB2PCG32 Release notes
GRIB Files:
I'm sure this question "...where do I get GRIB files from?" will come up at some point. Below are pointers to the various NWS/NCEP FTP Servers where NWS GRIB files can be downloaded. For information concerning the GRIB file naming convention, go to:
For information describing the model datasets available on the NCEP and OOS (NWS) Servers, go to:
http://strc.comet.ucar.edu/gribmaster/modeldatasets.htm
NWS GRIB
ftp://ftpprd.ncep.noaa.gov/pub/data/nccf/com
ftp://weather.noaa.gov/SL.us008001/ST.opnl
ftp://tgftp.nws.noaa.gov/SL.us008001/ST.opnl
WAFS GRIB
ftp://weather.noaa.gov/SL.us0080001/ST.opnl/MT.gfs_CY.{CC}/RD.{YYYYMMDD}/PT.grid_DF.gr1
ftp://tgftp.nws.noaa.gov/SL.us0080001/ST.opnl/MT.gfs_CY.{CC}/RD.{YYYYMMDD}/PT.grid_DF.gr1
Search for a file name of fh.###_tl.press_ar.octant* where '###' is forecast hour and '*' is the octant letter (I-P)
ftp://ftpprd.ncep.noaa.gov/pub/data/nccf/com/gfs/prod/gfs.{YYYYMMDDHH}
Search for a file name of wafs_*_tHHz_intdesk### where '###' is forecast hour, '*' is the octant letter (I-P) and
"HH" is the model run hour.
WAFS ENSEMBLE GRIB
ftp://ftpprd.ncep.noaa.gov/pub/data/nccf/com/mrf/prod/ens.{YYYYMMDD}
Search for a file name of wafs_*_tHHz_ens### where '###' is forecast hour, '*' is the octant letter (I-P) and
"HH" is the model run hour.
Canadian Meteorological Center (CMC) GRIB Data Here is the CMC Web site with detailed information on where to access Canadian Meteorological Center (CMC) GRIB data: http://www.weatheroffice.ec.gc.ca/grib Grib data is available for regional, global and ensemble models. As of early 2010 datasets are in GRIB1. There are plans to eventually transition all datasets to GRIB2.
Both GRIB1 and GRIB2 datasets can be viewed using WINGRIDDS using the helpful hints below. Helpful hints for viewing CMC regional, global and ensemble GRIB data with WINGRIDDS (1) Once WINGRIDDS is properly installed add the following lines: 036 RGL 047 GLB 071 CMC to the content of the file c:\wingridds\GRIB\GRIBMODL.DAT The number [036,047,071] is used the identify the Canadian [regional, global, ensemble] model. I used RGL GLB and CMC here but you could use your own letters
to describe these models. (2) Add the following line 255 A CMC to the content of the file c:\wingridds\GRIB\GRID.DAT (3) Put CMC GRIB data files into directory C:\wingridds\GRIB\NWS (4) Start WINGRIDDS and using appropriate menus, decode the data into WINGRIDDS data format (5) Your CMC GRIB data should now be available for viewing. For CMC GRIB datasets only: If after having reading the user information at: http://www.weatheroffice.ec.gc.ca/grib you still require more information on CMC GRIB
datasets, send an email to: production-info (at) cmc.ec.gc.ca
Email Support:
(spam blocker...replace 'at' with '@')
Jeffrey.A.Krob at noaa.gov
Last updated on: 04-01-2024