How it works?#

APBuilder uses herbie-data to download grib and inventory files from remote servers. APBuilder also supports reading local grib files without an inventory file. This application will check if the grib file exists locally, if not it will download it from a remote server. Then process the file accordingly. The next time you run this application with the datetime and weather model, it will use the local copy of the file, saving time as there is no need to download the file. You can also specify a local grib filename to use instead of downloading from a remote server.

Then APBuilder will generate the atmospheric profile files to be used in AC2Dr. In addition, it generates images to visualize the data. The output is saved to the default location or the directory specified by the user with the -out parameter.

Directory Structure#

APBuilder uses a directory structure created by herbie-data, which is the following:

  • out_dir is the output directory set by the user in the command
  • weather_model is the weather model set by the user in the command, or default if not set
  • yyyymmdd is the date of the files to search set by the user in the command
  • filename is the filename of the grib2 file. This filename has a defined structure, see more info below.
|-- out_dir
|   |-- weather_model
|       |-- yyyymmdd
|           |-- filename

Here is a concrete example.

|-- data
|   |-- gfs
|       |-- 20201029
|           |-- gfs_4_20201029_0000_000.grb2

Adding local files manually#

You can use a local grib file instead of downloading from a remote server. The file must be placed inside a specific folder as denoted above on the Directory Structure section.

To use the local file with APBuilder, make sure to specify the -lf or --local-filename flag with the full path to the file.

For example:

apbuilder build1d 20200804T00:00:00 50.6565 6.8033 53.2534 8.68980 \
    C:\\Users\\myuser\\apbuilder\\data \
    -lf C:\\Users\\myuser\\apbuilder\\data\\ifs\\20200804\\ECMWF_ERA5_20200804_1200.grib \
    -wm ERA5