Tropical Cyclone (TC) Retro Verification

Step 1: Get all of the model track files and analyzed best track files set up¶

1. Place all of your model track files in one directory.

2. Retrieve the required best track files from the mass store (located in /ESRL/BMC/fdr/Permanent/YYYY/MM/DDdata/nhc/btk), unzip them, and place them in one directory. You will want to get track files for all of the valid times you are verifying. For example, if your model runs from 2022-09-23 to 2022-09-30 and has forecast lead times out to 5 days, you will want all of the best track files from 2022-09-23 to 2022-10-05 (the original range plus five days).

Step 2: Run the METplus verification to generate track statistics¶

1. Copy /home/role.amb-verif/tcmet/xml/retro/metplus_tcmet_gsl_retro_template.xml to a working directory of your choice.

2. Open it in vi or another editor.

3. Change the path on line 17 from “/PATH/TO/MODEL/TRACK/FILES” to the actual path to your model track files.

   1. The filenames should be in the format “tctrk.atcf.2022071000.gfp8.txt”

4. Change the string MODELNAME_LIKE_IN_FILES on line 95 to match the last four characters in the names of your track files immediately before the “.txt”.

   1. In the example filename given above, you would replace MODELNAME_LIKE_IN_FILES with “gfp8”.

5. String replace MODELNAME for your model name. In vi, this is done with :%s/MODELNAME/<your_model_name>/g

   1. NOTE: You must use GFSO instead of AVNO, even if that’s what your model is calling itself. If you use AVNO, METplus will refuse to run. If you use GFSO, it will search for both GFSO and AVNO in your track files.

6. Change the path on line 20 from “/PATH/TO/BEST/TRACK/FILES” to the actual path to your best track files.

7. On line 70, set the date strings for your start and end dates. These should be in the format YYYYMMDDHHMM, and represent the range of model initialization times you want to verify (NOT the range of valid times).

8. Submit and run the workflow in rocoto. Upon completion, you should have new stat files in /home/role.amb-verif/tcmet/verif/output/tc_pairs_post/retro/MODELNAME

Step 3: Run the METplus verification to generate RI statistics – optional, but if you choose to do this step you must wait until step 1 is fully complete for your whole time range¶

1. Available after the next METplus and METexpress update (scheduled for late July).

Step 4: Load your stat files into the METexpress database¶

1. Copy /home/role.amb-verif/tcmet/xml/retro/mv_load_gsl_tc_retro.xml to a working directory of your choice, and rename it something descriptive.

2. Change the database on line 8 from DATABASE_NAME to something to describe your retro. For example, if this retro is part of a certain study or experiment, the database name could be mv_your-name_experiment-name. YOUR DATABASE NAME MUST START WITH “mv_” OR METEXPRESS WILL IGNORE IT. You can use the same database for multiple retro loadings, but please don’t load data into other people’s databases without their permission!

3. On line 25, replace “/PATH/TO/STAT/FILES” with the absolute path to the top-level directory where your stat files exist.

4. Use lines 28-30 (you can add more or take some away if necessary) to denote subdirectories under your top level path. These subdirectories should contain the stat files.

5. On line 3, enter your email.

6. If this is your first time using the database on line 8 (i.e., neither you nor anyone else has ever loaded data to it before), you will need to initialize the database. To do this, enter the following on the command line as amb-verif (replacing <your_db_name> with the actual name of your database):

   mysql --defaults-file=/home/role.amb-verif/GSL_verif-global/config/gsd_met_admin_my.cnf -e'create database <your_db_name>;'
   mysql --defaults-file=/home/role.amb-verif/GSL_verif-global/config/gsd_met_admin_my.cnf <your_db_name> < /home/role.amb-verif/GSL_verif-global/config/mv_mysql.sql

7. Run the following commands:

   conda activate avid_verify_py3
   python /home/role.amb-verif/tcmet/bin/met_db_load.py <path to your XML load file>

8. Your data will appear in METexpress the following morning, when the metadata refreshes.

9. If you need to view your data sooner than this, email mats.gsl@noaa.gov.