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1.3 What data formats are acceptable?

Version 1.7.1 of the archive accepts gridded input data files in the following formats:

As of version 1.6.0, the SPA also handles observational data stored in the following formats: Rechèrche en Prévision Numerique (RPN) is a division of Environment Canada on whose in-house data storage format the original inception of the SPA was based. The data access routines stored in the RPN library (librmn.a) are backwards compatible between the 1989 and 1998 I/O subprograms, but the file structures themselves are significantly different, and must be distinguished for proper operation of the SPA. Note that the ARMNLIB environment variable must be correctly set during the installation of the SPA for the RPN data format access routines to be loaded.

The GEneral Meteorological PAcKage (GEMPAK) is an open-source distribution made available by the University Center for Atmospheric Research. The GEMLIB environment variable (usually set by the Gemenviron script distributed with the package) must be correctly set during the installation of the SPA for the GEMPAK data format access routines to be loaded.

As much as possible, all of the data to be used as input should be contained in a single input file, unless regridding is required.

New in version 1.6.0 is an application programming interface (API) for observational files. In the initial implementation, only BURP (Binary Universal Report Protocol) files are supported. These files are local to RPN, but are based on the more common BUFR format, so extension to that observational file type should be relatively simple.