Basics: NetCDF with Python

netcdf_basics.py

import sys,getopt
#from netCDF4 import Dataset  # use scipy instead
from scipy.io import netcdf #### <--- This is the library to import.
import matplotlib
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import numpy as np
import os
from datetime import datetime, timedelta
import coltbls as coltbls
from mpl_toolkits.basemap import Basemap
from matplotlib.colors import LinearSegmentedColormap
from mpl_toolkits.axes_grid import make_axes_locatable
import matplotlib.axes as maxes


# Running Script example:
# $ python my_WRF_map.py wrfout_d0x_YYYY-MM-DD_HH:MM:SS

# Open file in a netCDF reader
directory = './'
wrf_file_name = directory+'W0NQXP~N' #NC files are named funny in a windows system
nc = netcdf.netcdf_file(wrf_file_name,'r')

#Look at the variables available
nc.variables

#Look at the dimensions
nc.dimensions

#Look at a specific variable's dimensions
nc.variables['T2'].dimensions   ## output is ('Time', 'south_north', 'west_east')

#Look at a specific variable's units
nc.variables['T2'].units        ## output is ('K')