Plotting Use Case: Fractions Skill Score (FSS)

This use case demonstrates how to use VCasT’s plotting module to visualize the Fractions Skill Score (FSS) across models and lead times using pre-aggregated MET statistics.

It uses a sample configuration file (plot.yaml) to create a line plot from an aggregated dataset produced by the NBRCNT use case.

Prerequisites

Before running the example, you need an input file agg.data created in the previous use case MET Stat Use Case: Fractions Skill Score (FSS).

Run the Example

  1. Clone the test repository:

    git clone https://github.com/NOAA-GSL/VCasT-tests
cd VCasT-tests/examples/MET/fss

  2. Run VCasT with the plotting YAML file:

    vcast plot.yaml

    This will generate the FSS comparison plot.

YAML Configuration Explained

Below is the content of plot.yaml, which configures VCasT to:

  • Load a pre-aggregated CSV file with FSS values

  • Plot fcst_lead on the x-axis and mean FSS on the y-axis

  • Differentiate models or smoothing scales

  • Filter the plot to include only the fss metric

Sample plot.yaml configuration
 1start_date: "2024-05-01_00:00:00" 
 2end_date: "2024-06-02_12:00:00"
 3interval_hours: "1"               
 4
 5average: false
 6scale: 1
 7
 8plot_type: line
 9
10fcst_var: 
11
12vars:
13  - fss: "./agg_20_9.data"
14  - fss: "./agg_20_25.data"
15  - fss: "./agg_20_81.data"
16  - fss: "./agg_20_361.data"
17  - fss: "./agg_20_729.data"
18
19unique:  
20
21plot_title: "REFC >= 20 dBZ"
22legend_title: "Stat"
23labels:
24  - "Interp_points - 9"
25  - "Interp_points - 25"
26  - "Interp_points - 81"
27  - "Interp_points - 361"
28  - "Interp_points - 729"
29    
30line_color:
31  - "red"
32  - "purple"
33  - "green"
34  - "orange"
35  - "black"
36
37line_marker:
38  - "o"
39  - "x"
40  - "^"
41  - "^"
42  - "o"
43
44line_type:
45  - "-"
46  - "-."
47  - "--"
48  - "-"
49  - "-."
50
51line_width:
52  - 0.5
53  - 0.5
54  - 0.5
55  - 0.5
56  - 0.5
57
58output_filename: fss_REFC20.png
59
60x_label: "Lead Time"
61y_label: "FSS"
62ylim: [0, 1]
63xlim: [0,60]
64grid: true
65yticks:   
66xticks: [0, 6, 12, 18, 24, 30, 36, 42, 48, 54, 60]

Output

The generated plot will be saved to the location specified by output_filename, such as fss_REFC20.png.

Example FSS plot