Meteorological Forcing Python API

See also

This is the Python API for building and writing GeoClaw meteorological forcing. The object model separates the evolving feature (a Track / StormTrack) from the forcing generated from it (ParametricMetForcing, GriddedMetForcing). The historical Storm class is retained as a backwards-compatible wrapper.

Readers ingest many track/data formats; writers emit only the two files GeoClaw consumes – a parametric storm file (write_geoclaw) and a gridded descriptor (write_data).

Storm (compatibility wrapper)

Track and StormTrack

Parametric met forcing

Gridded met forcing

Workflow tools

Met forcing data object

The surge.data file written by setrun.py is described by SurgeData (also available under the alias MetData); it is set in setrun.py as rundata.met_data (the former rundata.surge_data remains an accepted alias). See Storm Specification Data for the per-attribute reference.

class clawpack.geoclaw.data.SurgeData

Bases: ClawData

Meteorological (storm) forcing parameters written to surge.data.

Set as rundata.surge_data in a setrun.py and written to surge.data, which the Fortran met_forcing_module reads to activate and configure wind/pressure forcing. See Storm Specification Data for the per-attribute reference.

Forcing selection:

The forcing family and subtype are the preferred, explicit way to select a model:

  • storm_family – "parametric" (an analytic model with a storm center/track), "gridded" (file-backed wind/pressure fields, e.g. OWI/ASCII or NetCDF), or "none" (forcing off).

  • storm_subtype – for a parametric family, a model name such as "holland80", "holland2010", "cle", "slosh", "rankine", "modified_rankine", "demaria", or "willoughby"; for a gridded family, "gridded".

The legacy storm_specification_type (a model-name string or the signed integer code, e.g. "holland80"/1 or "data"/-1) remains fully supported: when storm_family/storm_subtype are unset it is resolved through forcing_subtype_registry. All three map to the same forcing on the surge.data wire.

Key attributes:

  • wind_forcing / pressure_forcing (bool) – enable the wind and pressure source terms.

  • drag_law (int) – wind-drag law (0 none, 1 Garratt, 2 Powell).

  • wind_index / pressure_index (int) – 0-based aux component indices for the forcing fields (Fortran indexing is +1).

  • storm_time_scale (float) – multiplicative scale on the storm time axis (>1 slower, <1 faster).

  • t_ramp_on / t_ramp_off (float) – seconds over which the forcing ramps on after t0 and off before tfinal (0 disables).

  • rotation_override (int/str) – override the hemisphere-based storm rotation sense.

  • wind_refine / R_refine (list/bool) – AMR refinement thresholds on wind speed and (parametric only) distance to the storm center.

  • storm_file (str) – path to the storm track file or gridded descriptor.

See Meteorological Forcing Python API for the Python storm/track object model and Sources for Storm Surge Data for storm data sources.

read(path: Path = PosixPath('surge.data'), force: bool = False)

Read surge data file

storm_spec_dict_mapping = {'cle': 3, 'data': -1, 'demaria': 7, 'gridded': -1, 'holland08': 8, 'holland10': 2, 'holland2008': 8, 'holland2010': 2, 'holland80': 1, 'modified-rankine': 6, 'modified_rankine': 6, 'none': 0, 'rankine': 5, 'slosh': 4, 'willoughby': 9, None: 0}
storm_spec_not_implemented = {}
write(out_file='surge.data', data_source='setrun.py')

Write out the data file to the path given