* script to print vertical wind profile of April-Nov. 1000hPa - 200hPa 2002,1983 and climatology
* Basically, this script produces a vertical cross section of zonal wind for 3 user defined time periods
* for a single month. In this case, I plotted 1) May climatology from 1979-2007, 2)May 2002, and 3)May 1983.
* Of course, you decide what dates are valuable for your specific analysis.
* Valuable "functions" in this example below include a) vertical point profiles, b) x and y labels, c) string placement,
* and defining a specific color for each profile line.

* DISCLAIMER: I am no expert, but can help beginners!
 
* re-initialize GrADS to clear saved variables
'reinit'
* open specific dataset given pathfile
'sdfopen c:\testdata\netcdf\uwnd.mon.mean.nc'

* determines how many z-levels to include and what geographic location to plot along with line thickness
***************
'set z 1 11'
'set lat 18'
'set lon -78.75'
'set cthick 7'
'set grads off'
***************


*sets months to include May Climo, May 2002, and May 1983
* In order to do this, you must know the time steps of your dataset. In this case, t=377 is May 1979 while t=653 is May 2002
* The Climatology profile averages every 12th time step from the 377 (may 1979) to 713 (may 2007)
'define may =ave(uwnd,t=377,t=713,12)'
'define 2002=ave(uwnd,t=653,t=653)'
'define 1983=ave(uwnd,t=425,t=425)'

* plot May 2002 in GREEN 
'set ccolor 3'
'd ave(uwnd,t=653,t=653)'

* plot May 1983 in YELLOW
'set ccolor 7'
'd ave(uwnd,t=425,t=425)'

* plot May climotolgy in BLACK
'set ccolor 1'
'd may'

* assign proper x and y labels along with plot title
'draw xlab u-Wind Speed'
'draw ylab pressure level'
'draw title May vertical u-wind profiles Jamaica\2002 1983 18N , 78.75W'

* places the legend at specific location (on GrADS virtual page coordinates)with specific color and defines string style
'set string 1 l 9 0'
'draw string  8.5 4 May 1979-2007'
'set string 3 l 9 0'
'draw string  8.5 3.7 May MSD 2002'
'set string 7 l 9 0'
'draw string  8.5 3.4 May MSD 1983'

* print the white background GIF image with the desired file name in the filepath location
'printim c:\testdata\msd_images\uwnd_profile_2002_1983_may.jpg gif x800 x600 white'