Reading GRIB Files

Reading GRIB Files#

GRIB (GRIdded Binary) is a highly compressed format used in operational weather forecasting. It’s often used by agencies like ECMWF and NOAA.

To work with GRIB files in Python, you’ll need the cfgrib engine, which is part of the ecCodes toolkit.

⚙️ Installation (One Time Setup)#

conda install -c conda-forge cfgrib eccodes

📥 Reading GRIB Data with xarray#

import xarray as xr

ds = xr.open_dataset("../data/example.grib", engine="cfgrib")
print(ds)

🧠 Notes#

  • GRIB files may have multiple message levels or parameter types.

  • Use filter_by_keys in cfgrib to narrow down dimensions (e.g., shortName, typeOfLevel, level).

GRIB is not as flexible as NetCDF for self-describing metadata, but it is widely used in operational and real-time settings.

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