PB2NC Tool: General

PB2NC Functionality

The PB2NC tool is used to stratify the contents of an input PrepBufr point observation file and reformat it into NetCDF format for use by the Point-Stat tool. The PB2NC tool must be run on the input PrepBufr point observation file prior to running Point-Stat. Observations may be stratified by PrepBufr message type, station identifier, a masking region, elevation, report type, vertical level category, quality mark threshold, and level of PrepBufr processing. Stratification is controlled by a configuration file and discussed on the next page.

For more information about the PrepBufr format, visit:
http://www.emc.ncep.noaa.gov/mmb/data_processing/prepbufr.doc/document.htm

For information on where to download PrepBufr files, visit:
http://www.dtcenter.org/met/users/downloads/observation_data.php

PB2NC Usage

View the usage statement for PB2NC by simply typing the following:

bin/pb2nc

Usage: pb2nc
	prepbufr_file	input prepbufr path/filename
	netcdf_file	output netcdf path/filename
	config_file	configuration path/filename
	[-pbfile prepbufr_file]	additional input files
	[-valid_beg time]	Beginning of valid time window [YYYYMMDD_[HH[MMSS]]]
	[-valid_end time]	End of valid time window [YYYYMMDD_[HH[MMSS]]]
	[-nmsg n]	Number of PrepBufr messages to process
	[-dump path]	Dump entire contents of PrepBufr file to directory
	[-log file]	Outputs log messages to the specified file
	[-v level]	Level of logging

At a minimum, the input prepbufr_file, the output netcdf_file, and the configuration config_file must be passed in on the command line. Also, you may use the -pbfile command line argument to run PB2NC using multiple input PrepBufr files, likely adjacent in time.