Instructions for generating a Skew T-log P diagram using Metpy with Matplotlib with TC Diag data on
casper:

casper:/glade/work/jvigh/HFIP-EnsRI/data_output/DIAGNOSTICS/TCDIAG



1) Create the appropriate Python environment
   - change to bash shell if you are not already working in bash
   - tcdiag_env.yaml is in the directory $METPLOTPY_BASE/METplotpy/metplotpy/plots/skew_t
   - run the following command:
        conda env create -f tcdiag_env.yaml

        (if you don't have conda in your path, you may have to indicate the full path to conda)
        This may take a few minutes to complete.

   - run the following to activate the conda environment:
     conda activate tcdiag_env

2) Update the following in the skew_t.yaml file:
   input_directory
   input_file_extension  (if the file extension has changed from .dat)
   output_directory
   log_directory
   all_sounding_hours to True if you want to generate plots for all the sounding hour data, False otherwise
   sounding_hours_of_interest  provide a list enclosed in square brackets of the sounding hours of interest

Customizations:
3) You can customize the appearance of the temperature and dewpoint lines:
   temp_line_color: red
   temp_line_style: '-'       NOTE: supported values are '-', '--', '-.', ':', 'None', ' ', '', 'solid', 'dashed', 'dashdot', 'dotted'
   temp_line_thickness: 2

   dewpt_line_color: green
   dewpt_line_style: '-'
   dewpt_line_thickness: 2

4) Set the size of the plot (in inches)
   figure_size_width
   figure_size_height

5) Modify the density of level and wind barbs by setting decimation:
   If no decimation, then set to 1
   decimate_barbs

6) Position the level labels (in meters) along the temperature curve or the y2 axis:
level_labels_along_y2-axis True if along y2 axis, False if along the temperature curve

7) Turn on/off plotting of adiabat lines, mixing line, etc. by setting to False:
display_dry_adiabats: True
display_moist_adiabats: True
display_mixing_lines: True
display_windbarbs: True

8) Determine the extent of the x-axis
set_x_axis_limits if True, then set min and max values
x_axis_min: -50
x_axis_max: 50

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To generate the skew T diagrams
===============================
cd to $METPLOTPY_BASE/METplotpy/metplotpy/plots/skew_t

where $METPLOTPY is the directory where you saved the METplotpy source code.

run the following from the command line:
python skew_t.py skew_t.yaml
