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

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:

• http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/igra/data/igra2-data-format.txt

Direct data access:

• http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/igra/data/data-por/