README for the CMB Climate Division temperature anomaly and percent normal precipitation data visualization


Abstract:
This project utilizes several python scripts to produce CONUS maps of monthly temperature anomaly and 
percent normal precipitation from the CMB Climate Division dataset. The monthly maps are produced by 
calling anomMainDriver.py. This script will process the most recent monthly maps (e.g., last month), 
but is also capable of processing any month/year that a user might desire. The output from the two 
monthly scripts (anomtavgDriver.py and anomprecipDriver.py) is set (hard coded) to place images 
in the "Images" directory inside the directory that contains these scripts.


Usage: ./anomMaindriver.py [args]



Data Source(s): CMB @ NOAA NCDC
Dataset: ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/cirs/climdiv/
e.g., ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/cirs/climdiv/climdiv-pcpndv-v1.0.0-20140404
    & ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/cirs/climdiv/2climdiv-norm-tmpcdv-v1.0.0-20160605





Software and Dependencies:

The scripts included here were built for Python 2.7. The following
modules must exist on the system for them to perform correctly:

matplotlib-1.1.1 (or higher)
shapefile (included with pyshp)
PIL (python imaging library, 1.1.7 or higher, PIL is the Python Imaging Library)
mpl_toolkits.basemap
numpy
sys
os
subprocess
time
matplotlib.font_manager (in order to utilize the true type font MS Trebuchet, which is not
	included as a "base" font in python*)
	*The usage of PIL and the font manager inside matplotlib in these scripts requires
	the ability to utilize true type fonts. As such for example on a linux box, one would
	need to have installed the freetype-dev packages. Specifically, libfreetype6-dev needs
	to be installed on ubuntu... 

Other files in this project:
colorbar and logo (.png and .eps) files included here are sized for each of the image 
sizes and are used by the various python scripts that produce the reprojected images