Tricks for wgrib2     2/2013

old: compatible with wgrib
new: wgrib2 only


(1) How do I convert the entire file to binary?

    wgrib2 grib_file -bin out.bin

(2) How do I get a verbose listing of the 20th record only?

    wgrib2 -V -d 20 grib_file

(3) How do I extract the 20th and 30th records?

    new: wgrib2 grib_file -match "(^20:^30:)" -bin binary_file
    new: wgrib2 grib_file -for "20:30:10" -bin binary_file
    old: wgrib2 grib_file | egrep "(^20:|^30:)" | wgrib2 -i grib_file -bin binary_file

(4) How do I extract the first 10 records as a grib file?

    new: wgrib2 grib_file -for 1:10 -grib new_grib_file
    old: wgrib2 grib_file | head -n 10 | wgrib2 -i grib_file -grib new_grib_file

(4') How do I extract records 34-66 from a file as a grib file?


    new: wgrib2 grib_file -for 34:66 -grib new_grib_file

    old: Here is an example of an awk filter.

        wgrib2 -s grib_file | awk '{if ($1 > 33 && $1 < 67) print $0}'
            FS=':' | wgrib2 -i grib_file -grib new_grib_file

    FS=':' implies that arguments are separated by colons.  As
    a result, the record number is the first argument ($1).
    The variable "$0" is the entire input line.  Isn't awk fun?

(4''') How do I extract records 10,12,19 from a grib file

       wgrib2 old_grib -match '^(1|12|19):' -grib new_grib

    The ^ is a special regular-expression character that matches the
    start of the line. The () denotes an expression and the vertical bar
    is the OR operator.  See you book on regular expressions for details.
  
(5) How do I remove the 2+i*8 th record from the file?

    You can do it with an AWK filter, but here is what I used. Remember -if is terminated by -fi or an output.

     wgrib2 in \
	-if_n 1::8 -s -grib out\
	-if_n 3::8 -s -grib out\
	-if_n 4::8 -s -grib out\
	-if_n 5::8 -s -grib out\
	-if_n 6::8 -s -grib out\
	-if_n 7::8 -s -grib out\
	-if_n 8::8 -s -grib out

 
(6) Some NCEP polar stereographic/lambert conformal files say that dx=0 and dy=0.

    Some NCEP files encode the grid spacing but set a flag specifying that
    the grid spacing is not given.  In this case wgrib2 and wgrib display a grid
    spacing of zero.  You can set the flag correctly by


    wgrib2 -set_flag_table_3.3 48  in.grb -grib out.grb

(7) CMC files have some variables which don't have a name.

    wgrib2 doesn't include the local extentions from CMC.  The CMC grib 
    tables follows the NCEP grib table except where they don't.  So
    you may be able to get by by having wgrib2 use the NCEP tables.
    This can be done changing the center flag to NCEP (7).

       wgrib2 -set center 7 (CMC grib file)
       obsolete: wgrib2 -set_center 7 (CMC grib file)

    Warning, "-set center 7" changes the center of the in-memory
    grib message.  If you write out the grib message, it will now
    have the center set to 7!

    wgrib2 -set center 7 (CMC grib file) -match 'HGT' -grib hgt.grb
    Note that hgt.grb will be labelled as coming from NCEP (7).

    If you are using g2ctl, you can use the NCEP table by changing

       $wgrib='wgrib';

    to

       $wgrib='wgrib -set center 7';

    in the g2ctl source code.
    
(8) I get  *** ERROR: not handled by to_we_sn_scan ***

   The default mode of wgrib2 is to convert the grid to WE:SN order.  
The code to convert from the native order to WE:SN hasn't been tested 
or written.  This happens with grids with a variable number of lat or 
lon points.  In order to use this file, you have to use the file in 
raw-order mode.  I.e., use "-order raw" on the command line.  When 
you dump the data, the grid points will be output without any translation 
of the order.

     wgrib2 -order raw -d 1 grib_file -bin out.bin

(9) Getting more information
    The option -v and -v2 should be tried.  Some of the options give
    a more verbose output.  

(10) I am generating a text dump (CSV) and the size of the file is really large.

    You can set grid point values to "undefined" and then they won't print out.

    wgrib2 grib_file -undefine out-box 30:40 -10:10 -csv out.txt

   The grid points outside of the box are set to undefined.  The -csv options
   tries to print the entire grid but finds only the values between 30N-40N and 
   10W-10E are defined.

(10') I am generating a text dump (CSV) and the size of the file is very large
     and I need all the points including undefined.

   The -ijbox will print out all the values within a box, including the undefined valued.

(11) I tried using the small_grib option but the files are bigger than the original.

   By default, The small_grib option writes a regional subset in grib1-packing.
   This is faster but produces larger files that the jpeg packing.  To make
   smaller files, use the -set_grib_type_type jpeg before the -grib_out option.

(12) I want to modify some existing grib files.  For example, I want to make
   sure the RH is positive.

   Suppose my file only has 1 record.

   1) Save the data in a text file, tmp.out.

     -sh-3.00$ wgrib2 test.grb  -no_header -text tmp.out
     1:0:d=2009030712:SPFH:2 m above ground:6 hour fcst:

   2) Change the data file, tmp.out, using the program of your choice.

   3) Use the import_text option to read in new data values and use the
      -grib_out to write the values to a grib file.  Note that you can
      not use the -grib option.

     -sh-3.00$ wgrib2 test.grb -no_header -import_text tmp.out -grib_out new.grb
     1:0:d=2009030712:SPFH:2 m above ground:6 hour fcst:


(13) My software won't handle the level "30-0 mb above ground".  How do
     I change the level to "15 mb above ground"?

     wgrib2 in.grb -if ":30-0 mb above ground" -set_lev "15 mb above ground"
          -fi -grib out.grb

    Requires 5/09 version of wgrib2.


(14) I have a list of options that I frequently use.  How do I reduce
     the typing?
(14') The option list is getting long and hard to read.

     You can place the commands in a file.

     ------- my_list ------
     -grid
     -nl -packing
     -nl -stats
     ----end of my_list----

     -sh-3.00$ wgrib2 gfs.t18z.master.grbf00.10m.uv.grib2 `cat my_list`
     1.1:0:grid_template=0:
             lat-lon grid:(720 x 361) units 1e-06 input WE:NS output WE:SN res 48
             lat 90.000000 to -90.000000 by 0.500000
             lon 0.000000 to 359.500000 by 0.500000 #points=259920:
     :packing=grid point data - jpeg2000 compression:
     :ndata=259920:undef=0:mean=-0.0242625:min=-24.13:max=26.44:cos_wt_mean=-0.228323
     1.2:0:grid_template=0:
             lat-lon grid:(720 x 361) units 1e-06 input WE:NS output WE:SN res 48
             lat 90.000000 to -90.000000 by 0.500000
             lon 0.000000 to 359.500000 by 0.500000 #points=259920:
     :packing=grid point data - jpeg2000 compression:
     :ndata=259920:undef=0:mean=0.672931:min=-18.61:max=23.4:cos_wt_mean=0.788584


(15)  I want to write the second records of a decoded grib-point data to stdout 
      without the inventory.

      Use the -inv option to send the inventory to a read-only file and the symbolic
      file "-" which represents stdout.

         wgrib2 -d 2 input.grb2 -inv /dev/null -text -


(16)  Masking data:  I want set all oceanic values to undefined.

      Suppose LAND is a grib file with the land mask (land=1, water=0) with the
         same grid as the data file (data.old)

      Make a new file with the land mask as the first record.

            cat LAND data.old > data.tmp

      wgrib2 data.tmp \
         -if '^1:' \
            -rpn '1:==:sto_1' \
         -fi \
         -not_if '^1:' \
           -rpn 'rcl_1:mask' \
         -grib_out data.new

      Line 2:  if the first record then
      Line 3:     see if land mask is equal to 1, save in register 1
      Line 4:  endif
      Line 5:  if not the first record  then
      Line 6:     recall register 1, apply mask operator
      Line 7:  write to data.new, endif

(17)  Make a daily max from the TMAX of the 00Z-06Z, 06Z-12Z, 12Z-18Z and 18Z-24Z

      wgrib2 data >inv
      grep ":d=$YYYYMMDD" <inv | sort -r -k3,3 | \
          wgrib2 -i data \
            -if '00:TMAX:' -rpn sto_1 -fi \
            -if '06:TMAX:' -rpn sto_2 -fi \
            -if '12:TMAX:' -rpn sto_3 -fi \
            -if '18:TMAX:' -rpn sto_4 -fi \
            -if_reg '1:2:3:4' -rpn 'rcl_1:rcl_2:rcl_3:rcl_4:max:max:max' \
                -set_ave '4@6 hour max(0-6 hour max fcst),missing=0' -grib_out TMAX$YYYYMMDD

(18)  Set the master table of a grib file to 6, do not change submessages into messages

      wgrib2 IN.GRB  -match "^[0-9]*(:|\.1)" -set master_table 6 -GRIB OUT.GRB

      The -match "^[0-9]*(:|\.1)" will match records with no submessages or the first submessage
      -set master_table 6 will set the value of the master table in the in-memory copy of the grib message
      -GRIB OUT.GRB will write out the entire grib message including all submessages. Note -GRIB not -grib

(18')  Process by grib message, not by field.  Enable to keep the submessage structure

      wgrib2 -match "^[0-9]*(:|\.1)"    ...
      
      ex. wgrib2 -match "^[0-9]*(:|\.1)"  IN.grb -if ":UGRD:" -GRIB uv.grb -if ":TMP:" -GRIB tmp.grb
      ex. wgrib2 -match "^[0-9]*(:|\.1)"  IN.grb -set_date 2010122500 -GRIB Christmas.grb

(18'') overtdateg2: how to change the date code in a grib2 file

       ex. change the analysis/initial time date to 12Z 2 Jan 2010
          wgrib2 -match "^[0-9]*(:|\.1)"  IN.grb -set-date 2010010212 -GRIB OUT.grb

(18''') overmodelg2: how to change the process codes in a grib2 file
  	 To see the process ids, use the -process_id option.
       ex. change the process id to 123 (background) and 124 (analysis/forecast)
          wgrib2 -match "^[0-9]*(:|\.1)"  IN.grb -set background_process_id 123 
		-set analysis_or_forecast_process_id 124 -GRIB OUT.grb

(19)  The -csv, -spread, -mysql options ignore missing/undefined grid values.  How do I add missing 
      to my CSV file or mysql database?

      You need to change the undefined value to another number.  For that, you can use the RPN 
      calculator and the "merge" operator.  Before you do the -csv or -mysql , you add the 
      following to the wgrib2 command line

           -rpn "sto_1:-9999:rcl_1:merge"

      The above rpn command:  (a) saves the top-of-the-stack/data into register 1
                              (b) puts -9999 on the top of the stack (you can change the number)
                              (c) pushes register 1 (data) onto the stack
                              (d) merges the top two stack entries.  Undefined "data" values
                                  are replaced by -9999
				  The top of the stack is used as the "data" after RPN finishes.

       ex. wgrib2 IN.GRB -match ":VAR:LEVEL:"  -rpn "sto_1:-9999:rcl_1:merge:" -csv OUT.TXT

       Note: do not use 9.999e20 as the missing value as that is wgrib2 special value for undefined.

(20)  My grib file has extra bytes between the records.  (I obtained some grib2 data with the 
      get_inv.pl/get_data.pl scripts.)  How do I get rid of junk bytes.

         wgrib2 IN.GRB -submsg 1 -GRIB OUT.GRB

         if you used: wgrib2 IN.GRB -grib OUT.GRB 
         all the submessages will be converted to messages.

(21)  How do I convert my grib file so that UGRD and VGRD are in the same message (like with opn NCEP files)

      a) make sure the UGRD is followed by the VGRD (U100) (V100)  (U200) (V200)
      b) wgrib2 IN.GRB -ncep_uv OUT.GRB
          IN.GRB and OUT.GRB can be pipes for additional speed
          to eliminate the inventory, wgrib2 IN.GRB -ncep_uv OUT.GRB -inv /dev/null

(21') What happens when V doesn't follow the U?

     You are going t have to sort the inventory so the V follows U,

     wgrib2 IN.grb | sed -e 's/:UGRD:/:UGRD:a:/' -e 's/:VGRD:/:UGRD:b:/' \
      |   sort -t: -k3,3 -k4,4  -k6,6 -k7rn,7 -k5,5 | wgrib2 -i IN.grb -ncep_uv OUT.grb


(22)  The GFS model has APCP (accumulated precip) fields of the following

		bash-2.05a$ wgrib2 master.small.grb2  | grep APCP 
		2:2710579:d=2011032900:APCP:surface:0-6 hour acc fcst:
		4:7550961:d=2011032900:APCP:surface:0-3 hour acc fcst:
		6:12197743:d=2011032900:APCP:surface:6-9 hour acc fcst:
		8:16263725:d=2011032900:APCP:surface:6-12 hour acc fcst:

      I just want 3 hour accumulations, how do I do it?

      You can use RPN to do it but it is a pain.  It is easier to use the -ncep_norm option.
      However, to use -ncep_norm, the APCP fields must be in the correct order.  You can use
      the unix sort.

	 wgrib2 master.small.grb2  | grep APCP | \
	    sed 's/-/:/' | \
	    sort -t: -k5,5 -k4,4 -k3,3 -kn6,6 -kn7,7 | \
	    wgrib2 -i master.small.grb2 -ncep_norm all.done.grb2

	1) this line make a inventory of the APCP fields
	2) this line converts ":I-J hour acc fcst:" to ":I:J hour acc fcst:"
	3) here, the unix sort commands puts the inventory in the right order for processing

		4:7550961:d=2011032900:APCP:surface:0-3 hour acc fcst:
		2:2710579:d=2011032900:APCP:surface:0-6 hour acc fcst:
		6:12197743:d=2011032900:APCP:surface:6-9 hour acc fcst:
		8:16263725:d=2011032900:APCP:surface:6-12 hour acc fcst:

	4) here, the -ncep_norm option makes a new file with 3 hour accumulations

		bash-2.05a$ wgrib2 all.done.grb2
		1:0:d=2011032900:APCP:surface:0-3 hour acc fcst:
		2:2710603:d=2011032900:APCP:surface:3-6 hour acc fcst:
		3:4646806:d=2011032900:APCP:surface:6-9 hour acc fcst:
		4:6583009:d=2011032900:APCP:surface:9-12 hour acc fcst:

(23) Take a month of 4x daily data and make daily averages.
	If you use use wgrib2 -ave dt OUTFILE, you will get a monthly mean when you do 
	the averaging.  So you have to process the data so that you do one day a a time.

		wgrib2 $file | sed 's/\(:d=........\)/\1:/' | \
		  sort -t: -k3,3 -k5,5 -k6,6 -k7,7 -k4,4 | \
		  wgrib2 $file -i -ave 6hr $out


(24) I want to change the process or model id of a grib file to 123.

          wgrib2 IN.grb -set analysis_or_forecast_process_id 123 -grib OUT.grb

     To see the available fields, type wgrib2 anything -set help help

     The -set option has a few predefined fields.  If the field hasn't been defined,
     you can use the -set_byte or -set_int options.

(25) -new_grid doesn't work!  The error message says that the winds were ignored.

    The -new_grid option interpolates does vector interpolations for vector quantities.
    This makes a big difference near the North and South poles. As a consequence of
    doing vector interpolations, -new_grid requires the zonal and meridional components
    of the vector quantity to be processed as pairs.  That is, the meridional component
    must be processed directly after the zonal component.  This is done by sorting
    the inventory.  However, to get the U-V order, we have to alter the names.

    wgrib2 IN.grb | \
    sed -e 's/:d=\([0-9]*\):\([A-Z]\)\([^:]*\)/:d=\1:\3_\2:/' | \
    sort -t: -k3,3 -k5,5 -k6,6 -k4,4 |  \
    wgrib2 -i IN.grb -new_grid_winds earth -new_grid latlon 0:144:2.5 -90:73:2.5 OUT.grb


    1) This line make the inventory of IN.grb
    2) This line takes :d=YYYYMMDDHH:NAME: and converts it into :d=YYYYMMDDHH:AME_N:
        The first letter of the make is put in the end. So meridional winds
        will follow the zonal winds when the file is sorted by the names.
    3) sort the inventory
    4) process the data in the order given by the inventory (-i).  This ensures that the 
       meridional winds follow the zonal winds.  This example shows the interpolation to
       a 2.5 degree grid.
  
(26) I have grib2 files in WE:NS order, how do I put them into WE:SN order?

     Use -new_grid or -lola to interpolate to a new grid.  Just make the new
     grid the same as the old grid except for a WE:SN order.

(27) wgrib2 is really slow for extracting multiple point data.

        wgrib2 IN.grb -lon 22 56 > data_22_55.txt
        wgrib2 IN.grb -lon 22 58 > data_22_58.txt
        wgrib2 IN.grb -lon 23 33 > data_23_33.txt

     In the above example, the file is being decoded 3 times.  Time can be saved by
     decoding once.

        wgrib2 IN.grb -lon 22 56 -lon 22 58 -lon 23 33 >data.txt

(28)  I have an irregular grid (130).  How do I get the lat-lon of the points?

    (a) The -grid option will print out the first the lat-lon values for the
        first 300 points.  

    (b) wgrib2 irr_grid.grb2 -d 1 -no_header -rpn rcl_lat -text lat.dat \
              -rpn rcl_lon -text lon.dat

    (c) wgrib irr_grid.grb2 -d 1 -rpn 0 -spread latlon.txt

(29)  How do I remove duplicate records?

    The following routine removes records that have the same inventory.

    wgrib2 IN.grb -submsg 1 | unique.pl | wgrib2 -i IN.grb -GRIB OUT.grb

    Note: (a) for messages with submessages, only the inventory of the 1st message is checked.
               i.e. if the 1st submessage matches and the second submessage doesn't, the 
               entire message is removed.
          (b) order is preserved
          (c) submessage structure is retained, see (a)
          (d) note that on the command line, "GRIB" is capitalized
        ----------------------- unique.pl ------------------------
        #!/usr/bin/perl -w
        # print only lines where fields 3..N are different
        # 
        while (<STDIN>) {
           chomp;
           $line = $_;
           $_ =~ s/^[0-9.]*:[0-9]*://;
           if (! defined $inv{$_}) { 
             $inv{$_} = 1;
             print "$line\n";
           }
       }
        --------------------- end unique.pl ----------------------

(30)   I want to use the editor to change the 2 m RH fields in a file

       Here is a simple way a extract and change a single grib message.

            wgrib2 IN.grb -match ":RH:2 m above ground:" -text rh.txt -grib rh.grb
                    .. extract 2m RH in text and as a grib file
            edit rh.txt
                    .. modify the grid point values
            wgrib2 rh.grb -import_text rh.txt -set_grib_type c3 -grib_out new_rh.grb
                    .. write a new grib file with modified values 

       Suppose you want to keep the original file and change a specific record

            wgrib2 IN.grb -match ":RH:2 m above ground:" -text rh.txt
            edit rh.txt
            wgrib2 IN.grb -if ":RH:2 m above ground:" -import_text rh.txt  -fi -set_grib_type c3 -grib_out OUT.grb 

       The above sequence will lose the submessages and waste time re-encoding the grib message. It is possible
       to save not reencoding.

(31)    I wanted to find the min TMP2M for a given year from CFSR.

        IN.grb = time series of TMP2m (only) for the given year

        # create an inventory where record 1 is last
        wgrib2 IN.grb -for 2:: > junk.inv
        wgrib2 IN.grb -d 1 >> junk.inv

        # process the file with record 1 last
        wgrib2 -i <junk.inv IN.grb \
          -if "^2:" -rpn "sto_1" -fi \
          -rpn "rcl_1:min:sto_1" \
          -if "^1:" -set_ave "0-1 year min anl" -grib_out OUT.grb

        rm junk.inv

        The first record to process is number 2, need to save in register 1.
        for all processed records: register1 = min(regster1, top of stack)
        The last record to process is number 1, change time code and save.

(32)  How do I separate a grib file by grid types?

       Someimes a grib file may have mutiple grids and want to split the file
       by grid type.

       You can see the grid used by the file

           wgrib2 -grid IN.grb

       You can see the number of grids (and the checksum) used by the (linux/unix)

           wgrib2 IN.grb -checksum 3 | cut -f3 -d: | sort -u

                wgrib2 IN.grb -checksum 3   will write the checksum of section 3, the grid definition sectioin
                cut -f3 -d:                 will select field 3 which is the check sum
                sort -u                     sort and only show unique line

            bash-3.2$ wgrib2 grids.grb -checksum 3 | cut -f3 -d: | sort -u
            sec3_cksum=1966855777
            sec3_cksum=2751972329
            sec3_cksum=3045129773
            sec3_cksum=3781314504
            sec3_cksum=4009958728

            In the file grids,grb, there are 

            You can extract a specific grid from grids.grb by, for example,

            bash-3.2$ wgrib2 grids.grb -checksum 3 | grep "sec3_cksum=1966855777" | wgrib2 grids.grb -i -grib grid1.grb
            2:169368:d=2009060500:HGT:200 mb:330 hour fcst:std dev

(32')  How many grids are in my grib file

           wgrib2 IN.grb -checksum 3 | cut -f3 -d: | sort -u | wc -l

           Note: the above solutions look at the checksum of section 3 (GDS)
           A different shape of the earth counts as a different grid.
           A different scanning mode counts as a different grid.
           A different windscanning mode counts as a different grid.

(33)  The -spreadsheet and -csv options don't print out the undefined grid points.
      How do I enable them to print out the undefined values?

           Normally -text and -csv do not print out undefined values.  To print out
           a strange value for undefined grid points, you will have replace the 
           undefined grid points by the strange value.

           bash-3.2$ wgrib2 IN.grb -rpn "-9999:swap:merge" -spreadheet OUT.txt

           -rpn "-9999:swap:merge" invokes the Reverse Polish Notation calculator.
                 -9999 pushes a grid of strange values onto the stack, -9999 in this case.
                 swap  exchanges the top two grids on the stack, the grib grid data and the -9999 grid
                 merge replaces the top two grid on the stack with the top grid points if defined
                      otherwise the second from top grid point values.

                At the end of -rpn, the top of the stack is new grid point data.
           
(34)   Similar questions like this have been posted have been asked before.

       "So I have a full grib2 file, containing about 300 fields. Its about 55 megs. I need to grab a 
       few values at a certain point. Using the wgrib2 -lon function to select location and the grep 
       command to narrow down to the fields I want works, in that it does return the values I require. 
       But it is so slow! ..  Anyone think there is a faster way?"

       Most NCEP grib2 files are compressed with JPEG2000 which produces small but slow-to-decode 
       files.  The best trick is to reduce the number of decodes that you do.

       Simple way to get values at (30N, -90W) and (40N, -80N)

            wgrib2 IN.grb -lon -90 30 > location1.txt
            wgrib2 IN.grb -lon -80 40 > location2.txt

       Trick 1, extract location1 and location2 at the same time (2x savings)
                Code that reads location.txt needs to be changed

            wgrib2 IN.grb -lon -90 30 -lon -80 40 > locations.txt

       Trick 2, only decode the fields that you need (ex. 2 m temp, accumulated precip)
           2 m temp = "TMP:2 m above ground"
           accumulated precip = "APCP"

            wgrib2 IN.grb  -match "(:TMP:2 m above ground:|:APCP:)" -lon -90 30 -lon -80 40 > locations.txt

          notes:  -match "(A|B)" means only process fields whose inventory matches A or B.
                  The argument of -match is a regular expression (unix speak) which is expressive.

       In our example, only two fields need to be decoded as compared to the 2x300 fields.

       Comment: grib2 supports irregular grids (grids defined by longitude and latitudes).  To save
         the values for 10 locations as a grib2 files, try

         wgrib2 IN.grb -irr_grid "lon1:lat1:lon2:lat2 .. lon10:lat10" RADIUS OUT.grb
           RADIUS: the nearest neighbor has to be within RADIUS km to be used.
           the nearest neighbor is used.
           
	 storing the grib messages as submessages will make the file smaller.

            wgrib2 OUT.grb -tosubmsg SMALL_OUT.grb

(35)   I needed to convert a direct access big-endian IEEE time series of daily 00Z Z500 fields for 1980.

       step 1: make a template file, a grib2 file with 1 record with the right grid (same as IEEE file) 
               and metadata (except time and level).  Here is the result

                  bash-3.2$ wgrib2 template
                  1:0:d=2012010100:HGT:500 mb:anl:

               The grid matches too.

                  bash-3.2$ wgrib2 template -grid
                  1:0:grid_template=0:winds(N/S):
                          lat-lon grid:(144 x 73) units 1e-06 input WE:NS output WE:SN res 48
                          lat 90.000000 to -90.000000 by 2.500000
                          lon 0.000000 to 357.500000 by 2.500000 #points=10512

       here's the bash command to convert the file into grib2.

       i=1
       while [ $i -le 366 ] ; do
           wgrib2 template
           i=`expr $i + 1`
       done | wgrib2 -i template -set_ts_dates 1980010100 1day 1 -set_lev "700 mb" -no_header \
          -big_endian -import_ieee $ieee -set_grib_type c3 -grib_out Z700.grb2

       How many lines of fortran was saved?