What's new in the application examples


24 February 2019

Added a new page that documents three routines added in NCL V6.6.0 for calculating interpolations and cross-sections of WRF-ARW 2D and 3D fields using lines and planes as slices.


20 February 2019

Added several examples showing how to use an updated version of gsn_coordinates to draw the edges and centers of hexagonal meshes. This capability was added in NCL V6.6.0:

  • MPAS - datagrid_9.ncl
  • ICON - datagrid_10.ncl
  • Geodesic - geo_660_1.ncl


    5 February 2019

    Added a page of NCL-to-Python examples, which serve as a companion to the NCL to Python Transition Guide, both developed by Karin Meier-Fleischer of DKRZ.


    12 January 2018

    Added example goes_6.ncl showing how to plot GOES-16 data.


    27 July 2017

    Added a new application page for showing various ways to zoom in on WRF map plots.


    19 June 2017

    Added a new application page for drawing data locations as lines or grids on an existing plot.


    4 June 2017

    Added a new application page for customizing WRF titles.


    10 March 2017

    Many new example pages were created before this date, but not announced here yet:


    24 July 2016


    14 June 2016

    • Added a new page that describes the basic concepts behind plotting data on a map using NCL.

    • Added several individual examples:
      • Added examples polyg_19.ncl and polyg_2.ncl showing how to add maps as annotations of other maps.

      • Added example bar_19.ncl showing how to force bars s to be the same width in a series of bar plots.


    17 October 2015


    13 October 2015

    Added examples "mask_14.ncl" and "mask_15.ncl" to the mask examples page showing how to use masking to show areas of interest.


    2 October 2015

    • Added examples "panel_36.ncl" and "panel_vp_36.ncl" to the panel examples page showing how to panel plots with a mix of individual and common labelbars.

    • Added example "panel_37.ncl" to the panel examples page showing how to panel 4 rows and 3 columns of plots, with each row having its own vertical labelbar.

    • Added example "lcnative_latlon_1.ncl" showing how to draw native lambert conformal data on a different map projection.


    23 August 2015


    11 August 2015

    Added example "text_19.ncl" to the text examples page, showing how to draw curved text on a map.


    7 August 2015

    Added example "interp1d_2.ncl" to the interpolators for one-dimensional curves page, showing how to apply different tension values to get different smoothed effects with ftcurv.


    31 July 2015

    Added an animation example showing how to speed up the creation of individual plots in an animation by using "setvalues".


    9 July 2015

    • Added another NCL editor enhancement for the Atom editor, contributed by Ryan Pavlick of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. This one allows users to run an NCL script or a selection from an NCL script directly from their Atom editor.

    • Added colormap example 10 which draws all of the NCL colormaps as vertical labelbars.


    25 June 2015

    Added a link to an NCL editor enhancement for the Atom editor. This was contributed by Ryan Pavlick of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.


    5 June 2015

    Added example "mapoutlines_5_zoom.ncl" to the map outlines page comparing various map resolutions available in NCL, with high resolution outlines from a shapefile.


    30 May 2015

    Added example "axes_6.ncl" to the axes page showing how to increase the range of the X and/or Y axis when you have coordinate array assigned.


    29 May 2015

    Added example "overlay_12.ncl" to the overlay page showing how to overlay two color contour plots each with their own color map.


    26 May 2015

    Added a link to another NCL editor enhancement for the Notepad++ editor. This was contributed by Dr. Ma Xinye and Ge Hui, from the School of Atmospherical Sciences, Nanjing University, China (worldwindmxy@gmail.com).


    12 May 2015

    • Added example "overlay_11.ncl" to the overlay page showing how to overlay vectors and filled contours on a map, with the contours masked by China and Taiwan.

    • Added example "text_18.ncl" to the text page showing how to add multiple figures to plots in a panel plot.


    21 April 2015

    Added an animation example contributed by Karin Meier-Fleischer of DKRZ showing how to animate two globes side-by-side.


    13 March 2015

    Alan Brammer of the University of Albany contributed the initial version of the above examples and the code necessary to produce scalar and paneled streamlines plots.


    11 January 2015

    • Added ESMF example ESMF_regrid_31.ncl to the ESMF regridding page showing how to regrid data from a categorical vegetation data to a 1 degree using nearest neighbor interpolation.

    • Added ESMF example ESMF_regrid_32.ncl to the ESMF regridding page showing how to regrid data on a WRF output file to both a 1.0 and 0.5 degree grid, with lat/lon lines included to show the grid structure.

    • Added WRF example wrf_gsn_7.ncl to the WRF/GSN page showing how to regrid data on a WRF output file to both a 0.25 and 0.125 degree grid, with lat/lon lines included to show the grid structure.


    2 January 2015

    Added three Butterworth filter examples (bfband_[1-3].ncl) to the filters example page. These illustrate the use of the new dim_bfband_n function that will be added to NCL V6.3.0.


    12 December 2014

    Added examples cloudsat_2.ncl and cloudsat_3.ncl to the CloudSat page.


    3 December 2014

    Added examples "shapefiles_17.ncl" and "shapefiles_18.ncl" the Shapefiles page showing other methods for masking data based on outlines in a shapefile.


    12 November 2014

    • Added an example of reading and plotting CO Total Column from an HDF-EOS5 MOP02T-20100414-L2V16.2.1.he5 file, using colored markers.

      This script was contributed by Rebecca Buchholz, NCAR/ACD.

    • Added example "shapefiles_16.ncl" to the Shapefiles page showing how masking against a shapefile outline affects different grid resolutions.


    26 October 2014

    Added new applications pages:


    21 July 2014

    Added a new applications page showing how to plot WRF-ARW data using gsn_csm plotting scripts.


    21 May 2014

    Added a unique panel plot with four sets of filled curves, contributed by Dustin Swales of NOAA/PSD.


    13 May 2014

    Added a link to an NCL editor enhancement for the Notepad++ editor. This was contributed by Brian Vanderwende, a PhD student at the University of Colorado Boulder.


    1 May 2014

    Added an example showing how to attach a logo to an existing NCL plot. See logo_4.ncl on the Logos example page.


    18 April 2014

    Added some faster and cell-fill versions of scripts for plotting MPAS data.


    16 April 2014


    15 April 2014

    • Added example "bar_18.ncl" to the bar chart page showing how draw stacked bars with labelbars. This was contributed by Rashed Mahmood.

    • Added an example to the unique page showing how to compare wind fields. This script was contributed by Clément Vic, PhD student at Laboratoire de Physique des Océans, Brest (FRANCE).


    23 March 2014

    Added two new application pages:


    17 March 2014

    Added example "Germany_coastal_counties_DEU_adm.ncl" to the Shapefiles page showing how to use shapefile outlines of coastal counties in Germany to average data over each county. This example was contributed by Karin Meier-Fleischer of DKRZ.


    3 March 2014

    • Overhauled the Shapefiles examples to use newer methods for attaching shapefile data to an NCL map. Also included a new and more generic "shapefile_mask_data" function in shapefile_mask_data.ncl for masking data based on outlines in a shapefile.

    • Added example "shapefiles_14_mask.ncl" to the Shapefiles page showing how to mask WRF data based on outlines in a shapefile.


    26 February 2014

    • Added example "bar_17.ncl" to the bar chart page showing how fill bars to the left and right of a given X reference line.


    18 February 2014

    • Added example "bar_16.ncl" to the bar chart page showing how to create a basic stacked bar plot. This was contributed by Rashed Mahmood.

    • Added a link to an NCL editor enhancement for the Sublime Text editor. This was contributed by Dr. Li Dong of IASP/Chinese Academy of Sciences.

    • Added example "shapefiles_14.ncl" to the shapefiles page showing how to add shapefile outlines to an existing WRF contour/map plot.


    6 January 2014

    • Added example "text_17.ncl" to the text page.


    13 November 2013

    • Added example "contour1d_4.ncl" to the contour1d page showing how to color markers based on the same levels used in a contour plot. Opacity is used to de-emphasis the filled contour plot.

    • Added example "overlay_9a.ncl" to the overlay page showing how to use overlay to overlay two plots that are in different data spaces.

    • Added example "zonal_8.ncl" to the zonal means page showing how to add an additional curve to the zonal means plot.


    12 November 2013

    Added example "wrf_debug_4.ncl" to the WRF debug page showing two ways you can subset a WRF lat/lon grid.


    19 August 2013

    Added example "shapefiles_13.ncl" to the shapefiles page showing how to take the average of a data array based on Georgia county outlines read from a shapefile.


    31 July 2013

    Added example "panel_33.ncl" to the panel page showing how to maximize two sets of paneled plots. There are other examples that show how to do this, but this one also has vertical labelbars and uses the new cnFillPalette resource to assign different color maps to each set of contour plots.


    25 July 2013

    Added example 17 to the "new color capabilities" page showing how to use opacity to highlight overlapping positive and negative contours in two separate plots.


    19 July 2013

    Added example 27 to the ESMF regridding page showing how to regrid data from an ECMWF operational Gaussian grid to 2.5 degree grid.


    3-5 July 2013

    Overhauled the "Writing ASCII files", "Writing binary files", and "Reading binary files" example pages to add more examples and clean them up.


    7 June 2013

    • Added a new application page for examining WRF grids.

    • Added example "panel_31.ncl" to the panel page showing how to panel vectors over topographic maps, with a single vector reference annotation box drawn at the bottom.

    • Added example "panel_32.ncl" to the panel page showing how to panel spaghetti plots and add a custom legend.


    28 May 2013

    Added a new application page for creating topographic maps.


    9 May 2013

    • Added example "panel_30.ncl" to the panel page showing how overlay bar charts on maps, and then to panel them with no white space inbetween the maps.


    6 May 2013

    • Added example "conLev_4.ncl" to the contour levels page showing how to deal with contouring constant fields.


    8 April 2013

    • Added example "raster_6.ncl" to the raster page showing how to create a 2D histogram with irregular X and Y axes using raster contours.

    • Added example "shapefiles_12.ncl" to the shapefiles page showing how to modify the gsn_add_shapefile_polylines routine to limit what polylines are drawn.


    5 April 2013

    • Added example "panel_29.ncl" to the panel page showing how to panel multiple plots with both color and shaded contours, and create two separate labelbars.

    • Added example "xy_32.ncl" to the XY plot page showing how to create multiple legends for a multi-curve plot.

    • Added example "overlay_10.ncl" to the overlay page showing how to overlay shaded contours on filled contours, with two separate labelbars.

    • Added example "shapefiles_11.ncl" to the shapefiles page showing how to use a shapefile containing U.S. outlines to create a land mask.


    3 March 2013

    Added a new application page for visualizing MPAS model data.


    26 February 2013


    25 February 2013

    Added a new application page for analyzing data from the IBTrACS project.


    15 February 2013

    Added example 3 to the time axis labels page showing how to create a time series of WRF data, with nice time labels on the X axis.


    14 February 2013

    Added example 15 to the bar chart page showing how to draw filled bars under an XY curve.


    11 February 2013

    • Added example 10 to the shapefiles page showing how fill shapefile polygons based on a provided colormap.
    • Added example 20 to the labelbars page showing how to draw several labelbars on a page.

    5 February 2013

    Updated example "station_2.ncl" on the station page to add a second plot that draws a labelbar instead of a legend.


    3 January 2013

    • Added example 24 to the ESMF regridding page showing how to regrid data from a POP grid to 1x1 degree grid.

    • Added example 8 to the overlay page showing how to overlay an XY plot on a contour plot.


    28 December 2012

    • Examples 12 and 13 were added to the mask applications page showing how to create a land mask from a shapefile that contains coastal outlines. Example 13 compares the mask with one read off the data file.


    20 December 2012

    • Added example 10 to the annotation page showing how fill in the background of small XY plots that overlap with a larger XY plot.


    20 November 2012

    Added new application pages:


    13 October 2012

    Added a new page showing how to plot data from various Toulouse models. These scripts came out of two NCL workshops held at CERFACS in Toulouse in October 2012, using datasets provided by the students.


    12 October 2012

    • Added example 9 to the annotation page showing how add small XY plots to the inside of a large XY plot.

      To see a real-world example of the same technique, see example 13 on the "unique plots" page.

    • Added example 27 to the map only page showing how to draw a map in four quadrants, with each quadrant using a different fill color.


    28 September 2012

    Example 7 was added to the Lat/lon grid lines on a map applications page showing how to draw a WRF lat/lon grid.


    26 September 2012

    Added example 28 to the panel plot page showing how to panel 60 plots with slightly different sizes, and move them closer together.


    21 September 2012

    • Added example 20 to the ESMF regridding page showing how to regrid data from a 27km WRF grid to a coarser 81km WRF grid.

    • Added example 9 to the shapefiles page showing how to calculate an areally weighted mean time series for an irregularly shaped region.

    • Added example 31 to the XY page showing how to create your own dash patterns for an XY plot. This can be useful if you need to create dash lines with more spaces between the dashes.


    16 September 2012

    • Added example 4 to the local minima/maxima applications page showing how to add different color markers to a plot that uses a 256-color colormap.

    • Added example 19 to the labelbar page showing how to reconstruct a labelbar from contour plot, in the exact location as it appears with the plot.


    28 August 2012


    3 August 2012


    2 August 2012


    30 July 2012


    23 July 2012

    Example 6 was added to the Lat/lon grid lines on map applications page showing how to add latitude labels.


    19 July 2012

    • Added a new page that describes how to handle atmospheric and oceanographic climate indices.

    • Example 14 was added to the legend page showing how to draw only a partial legend for a plot with several XY curves.


      22 June 2012

      Example 9 was added to the taylor diagram applications page showing how use taylor diagrams for many models.

      Thanks to Erik Noble of NASA for the contribution.


      6 June 2012

      Example 5 was added to the Evans Plot applications page showing how to panel several Evans plots.

      Thanks to Dr. Jason Evans of the Climate Change Research Center at the University of New South Wales for providing the updated template and new example.


      25 May 2012

      Example 2 was added to the animation applications page showing how to created an animated GIF of WRF contour data.


      19 March 2012

      • Examples 7 and 8 were added to the annotation applications page showing how to draw multiple plots around a single plot, and then draw connector lines between them.

      • Example 14 was added to the bar applications page showing how to draw a curve on top of a bar chart.

      15 March 2012

      • Added a new page that describes how to draw phased contours.

      • Example 9 was added to the colormap page showing how to create a color map that reverses the colors at midpoint.

      • Example 16 was added to the text page showing how to line up decimal points in floating point text strings.


      22 February 2012

      Example 3 was added to the local minima/maxima page showing how to label your own minima/maxima locations.


      2 December 2011

      Added a new page that describes how to handle complex coefficients in GRIB files.


      21 November 2011

      Example 7 was added to the vector plots page showing how to change the position of the arrow with respect to the base coordinates.


      17 November 2011

      Example 13 was added to the legend page showing how to create a legend from scratch using an XY plot. The purpose of this is to allow you to further customize the legend, say by removing one or more of the legend items.


      9 November 2011

      Example 13 was added to the bar chart page showing another variation on "floating" bars. This example shows one way you might compare data from different models.

      This example was contributed by Daniel Adriaansen of NCAR/RAL.


      3 November 2011

      Example 12 was added on the unique applications page to show how to plot a PIREP/METASR/RAOB combo.

      This example was contributed by Daniel Adriaansen of NCAR/RAL.


      2 November 2011

      Added a new ASCII reading example that reads a complicated ASCII file with no delimeters or much structure.


      11 October 2011

      Added a new page that describes how to plot data on a rotated lat-lon grid.


      10 October 2011

      Added a new Kate editor enhancement for NCL contributed by Raul Valenzuela of the University of Colorado.


      28 September 2011

      Examples 4 and 5 was added to the Wind barbs page showing how to use wmbarb to create a wind profile plot.


      27 September 2011

      Example 5 was added to the radar page showing how to use raster contours to create a panel of four different radar plots. This example was contributed by Qin Rui of the Beijing Weather Modification Office.


      15 September 2011

      Added example 17 to the labelbar page showing how to draw a plot with a labelbar with triangular ends.


      2 September 2011

      Added example 7 to the scatter plots page showing how to draw big hollow markers and use labelbars, markers, and text strings to create a nice legend.


      31 August 2011

      Added example 25 to the maps only page showing how to fill the climate divisions in the state of Idaho.


      29 August 2011

      Added example 16 to the labelbar page showing how draw a labelbar with triangular edges.


      25 August 2011

      Added example 15 to the labelbar page showing how to reverse a labelbar.


      22 August 2011

      Added example 12 to the bar chart page showing how to draw multiple sets of "floating" bars.


      14 July 2011

      Added example 27 to the panel plot page showing how draw both a vertical and horizontal labelbar on a panel plot.


      30 June 2011

      Added example 26 to the panel plot page showing how put multiple paneled plots on one page, using different colormaps.


      20 June 2011

      Added example 4 to the CESM Ice Model page showing how to visualize data on the CICE tripole grid.


      6 June 2011

      Added a new Aquamacs editor enhancement for NCL contributed by Luis C. Cana Cascallar.


      17 May 2011

      Added a new page that describes how to customize to lat/lon grid lines over a map.


      16 May 2011

      • Example 8 was added to the Shapefiles applications page showing how to draw various administrative areas for India.

      • Example 3 was added to the coastlines applications page comparing NCL's and RANGS/GSHHS map databases with shapefile data for Australia.


      6 May 2011

      Added a new page that describes how to set contour levels for use with symmetric color tables.


      13 April 2011

      • Example 8 was added to the Taylor Diagram applications page showing how indicate bias on the diagram.

      • Example 6 was added to the annotation applications page showing how to attach plots to the outside of a map.


      6 March 2011

      • Example 7 was added to the shapefiles applications page showing how to plot river basins, indigenous areas, places of interest in Australia.

      • Example 4 was added to the radar page showing a nice way to display radar data with special labels.


      24 February 2011

      • Example 10 was added to the bar plot page showing how to draw horizontal stacked bars.


    17 February 2011

    • Examples 2 and 3 were added to the radar page showing more ways to display radar data.

    • Example 6 was added to the scatter page showing how to draw filled, outlined dots on a polar map projection.


    31 January 2011

    • Example 12 was added to the legend page showing how to further customize an XY plot legend.


    29 January 2011

    • Example 14 was added to the labelbar page showing how to change the alignment of labels on a labelbar.


    24 January 2011


    19 January 2011


    6 December 2010

    • Example 10 was added to the masking applications page showing how to mask missing values in a cell-filled contour plot.


    29 November 2010

    • Example 30 was added to the XY plots page showing how to force an axis to be irregularly spaced.


    18 October 2010

    • Example 24 was added to the map only page showing how to add minor tickmarks to a map.


    16 August 2010

    Added new page that describes how to create opaque or transparent plots.


    8 August 2010

    • Example 4 was added to the axes page showing how to create a cartesian coordinate system.


    28 July 2010

    A new page that describes how to read CSV files was added.


    1 Jul 2010

    Added example 9 to the map tickmarks page to show how to create your own map tickmarks for any rectangular map projection.


    14 May 2010

    Added example 4 to the POP Grid to Lat/Lon Grid to illustrate how to reduce errors along coastlines when regridding from a POP grid to a lat/lon grid at depth.


    21 April 2010


    15 April 2010

    Example 11 was added on the unique applications page to show how to draw a series of attached XY plots, with polygons added for emphasis.

    This example was contributed by Dr. Xiaofeng Li.


    11 April 2010

    A new page that describes NCL function codes was added.


    27 March 2010

    • Example 9 was added to the masking applications page showing how to mask a data array based on a lat/lon polygon.

    • Example 5 was added to the table applications page showing how to create a monthly calendar.


    24 March 2010

    A new page on contouring ISCCP grids was added.


    10 March 2010

    Added an editor enhancement file for TextMate, contributed by Ryan Pavlick from the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry.


    8 March 2010

    Added example 4 to the table applications page showing how to draw a table with tickmarks and labels.


    5 March 2010

    A new time axis labels page was added showing how to create nice time labels on the X or Y axis of an NCL graphic.


    10 February 2010


    7 January 2010

    • Added example to the annotations page showing how to attach a legend to a map.


    23 December 2009


    22 December 2009


    19 November 2009

    • Example 16 was added to the histogram page showing how to label the histogram bars with values from the histogram itself.


    15 November 2009

    • Example 6 was added to the ICON model data page showing how to overlay two high-resolution fields onto a coarse global field.

    • Example 28 was added to the XY plot page showing how to create a hodograph plot.


    11 November 2009

    • Example 11 was added to the bar chart page showing how to panel a plot with multiple bar charts and add a custom legend.


    7 November 2009

    • HDF-SDS example 5 was added to the HDF applications page showing how to draw multiple swaths on a single map.

    • Example 8 was added to the map tickmarks page showing how to change the labels of the X and Y axes of a cylindrical equidistant map.

    • Example 15 was added to the histogram applications page showing how to change the labels on the X axis.


    31 October 2009

    • Added a page showing how to do overlays, which is what allows you to draw contours, vectors, streamlines, and XY plots on top of other plots (like maps).

    • Added a page showing how to plot ICON model data.

    9 October 2009


    21 September 2009

    • Example 3 was added to the shapefiles applications page showing how to plot stream data from South America.


    18 September 2009


    16 September 2009

    New pages:

    New examples:

    • Example 3 was added to the native applications page showing how to retrieve lat/lon coordinates for a data array when all you have are map projection parameters.

    • Example 24 was added to the panel applications page showing how to control the resize scale factor for paneled plots that are different sizes.

    • Example 23 was added to the maponly applications page showing how to draw all the current map projections for V5.1.x.

    • Example 9 on the text applications page was supplemented to show how to attached rotated text strings.


    30 July 2009


    22 July 2009

    • A new applications page was created for the various editor enhancement scripts that have been contributed by users over the years. These scripts are not brand new; they were previously hosted under the "Support" page.

    • Example 4 was added to the Station Data applications page showing how to plot all METAR reporting stations for a specified region.

      This script was contributed by Jonathan Vigh of Colorado State University.


    19 July 2009


    29 June 2009

    • Example 8 was added to the masking applications page showing how to draw all the counties of a particular state and mask all other areas.


    15 June 2009

    • A new applications page was created to show how to create animations in NCL.

    10 June 2009

    • A new applications page was created to show how to read and plot shapefile data.

      Note that this is only available in V5.1.1 or later, and in V5.1.1, it's a beta test version only.

    • Example 23 was added to the panel applications page illustrating how to panel 12 plots that are attached along the X and Y axes.

    24 April 2009

    A new applications page was created to show some vector effects, like filling and outlining vectors, and controlling the look of vector arrow heads.


    10 April 2009

    • Example 26 was added to show another way of adding a curve to an existing XY plot.

    • Example 27 was added to show how to generate an XY plot with four curves and four separate Y axes.


    12 March 2009

    • Example 8 was modified on the maponly applications page to show how to draw only those countries/boundaries that are specified via the mpOutlineSpecifiers resource. In this example various countries in southeastern Asia were drawn, along with the Chinese provinces.

    28 January 2009

    • Example 10 was added on the unique applications page to show how to draw a series of attached XY plots, with gray bars added for emphasis.

      This example was contributed by Yi Wang of PNNL.


    28 January 2009

    • Example 25 was added on the XY page to show how to add data to an existing XY plot.

    • Example 14 on the contour effects page was added to show how to overlay shaded contours on color-filled contours, and generate two separate labelbars.


    10 October 2008

    • Example 7 was added to the masking applications page showing how to color fill and then outline areas of missing data in a contour plot. This method could be used to mask and then fill all areas on a height by latitude (or longitude or time) plot that are below ground assuming one has topographic information.


    7 October 2008


    12 September 2008

    A new applications page was created to show how to modify the axes of XY, contour, and vector plots.


    11 September 2008

    There's now a list of all the resources and a list of all the functions/procedures used in the applications examples, along with the name of every example each one appears in, and the applications page associated with that example


    10 September 2008


    14 August 2008

    • Example 16 was added to the maps only applications page showing how to use a new map database for drawing province and state boundaries in China, India, and Brazil.

      Available in version 5.1.0 and later.


    29 July 2008


    25 July 2008


    15 July 2008

    • Example 13 was added to the text applications page showing how to change the justification of your text strings.

    27 May 2008

    • Example 9 was added to the legend applications page showing how to change the order of items in a legend.

    22 May 2008


    22 April 2008

    • Example 13 was added to the histogram applications page demonstrating how to change the formatting of the bottom axis labels.

    27 February 2008

    • An applications page for dealing with GrADS CTL files was added. This page provides a ruby script for parsing such files. Thanks go to Saji N. Hameed of the APEC Climate Center for this contribution.

    05 February 2008

    • Examples 10 and 11 were added to the tickmarks applications page illustrating how to label both major and minor tickmarks. They both use a different method. Example 11 introduces a new function called gsn_blank_plot.

    21 December 2007


    11 December 2007

    • Example 22 was added to the panel applications page illustrating how to add individual common titles to two sets of plots paneled on the same page.

    5 December 2007

    • Example 21 was added to the panel applications page illustrating how to add common X/Y axis labels to a panel plot.

    27 November 2007

    • Examples 11 and 12 were added to the text applications page showing how to add a label on the right Y axis, and how to add subtitles to the top of a plot.

    13 November 2007

    • An Evans plots applications page was added to show how to generate the special Evans plot, which is a way to visualize spatially two variables of interest, one of which provides some measure of "importance".

    30 October 2007

    • Example 12 was added to the labelbar applications page illustrating how to control the end labels and boxes on a contour labelbar.

    25 October 2007


    24 October 2007


    24 September 2007

    • Example 15 was added to the maps only applications page illustrating how to draw climate divisions.

    17 September 2007

    • Example 20 was added to the panel applications page illustrating how to panel plots of different sizes.

    12 September 2007


    15 August 2007

    • Example 18 was added to the Color Fill applications page to illustrate colors in the HSV color space.

    30 July 2007

    • A boxplot example was added that shows how to calculate and plot the median, minimum value, maximum value, and the 25th and 75th percentiles of two timeseries.

      An example was added to the mask applications page that shows how to use landsea_mask to calculate a land sea mask for a particular grid, and how to apply the calculated land sea mask to a data array.


    27 July 2007

    • An applications page was added showing how to generate contours from an EASE grid.

    9 July 2007


    1 July 2007

    • A 3D plot applications page was added to show how some low-level routines can be called from NCL to generate 3D scatter, surface, and isosurface plots.

    1 June 2007

    • Example 22 on the XY page was added to show how to shift the left Y axis away from the rest of the plot.

    31 May 2007

    • A Example 9 on the tick mark page was added to show how to place and label the righthand side Y-axis tick marks differently than the lefthand side Y-axis tickmarks.

    23 May 2007

    • A TIGGE project applications page was added to show how NCL could be used to handle and display the TIGGE project data.

    11 May 2007

    • Example 21 on the XY page was added to show how to use reference lines and fill colors to achieve a special kind of filling of your XY plot.

    27 March 2007


    16 February 2007

    • Example 19 on the XY page was updated to show how to add a legend to a plot with three different Y axes.

    28 December 2006


    14 December 2006


    28 November 2006


    17 October 2006

    • A new ASCII-reading page was added to show how to read columnar data that is separated by a common delimiter.

    16 October 2006


    14 October 2006


    26 September 2006


    1 September 2006

    • A new WRF page was added showing how to generate storm track plots from WRF data.

    30 August 2006

    • Two more unique application examples were added (examples 7 and 8). One is an animation that shows a simulation of an idealized vortex evolution on the sphere, and the other is a storm track of Hurricane Katrina.

    23 August 2006


    18 July 2006


    20 June 2006

    • An example was updated to show how to use a new resource called mpMaskOutlineSpecifiers to mask outlines in a map that you don't want to see. This is useful if you need to create "simplified" continental outlines (that is, outlines without small islands and inland water areas included). See example 14 in the map only section.

    • A new example has been created to show how to use gsn_create_text and gsn_add_annotation to create text and attach and position it on a plot. See example 9 in the text section.


    31 May 2006

    • A new example has been created to show how to draw simple continental outlines that don't include inland water or island outlines. See example 14 in the map only section.


    19 April 2006

    • Example 12 was added to demonstrate how to color fill/pattern fill/outline areas with missing values.
    • Example 2 was added to the time applications page showing how to use ut_calendar / ut_inv_calendar to go from a mixed Julian/Gregorian date to a UT-referenced date, and then back again.
    • Example 3 was added to highlight the functionality of yyyymm_to_yyyyfrac, which can be used to set up a monthly time array useful for plotting purposes.

    14 April 2006


    28 February 2006


    26 January 2006

    • A new page on visualizing NARR (North American Regional Reanalysis) data was added.

    • Two new examples were added to the paneled plots page (examples 17 and 18). One shows how to panel plots that have two separate labelbars, and the other shows how a labelbar doesn't explicitly need colors in the middle.

    • Example 6 was added to the unique examples to show a visualization with ten XY plots and a legend at the bottom.

    • A new polymarker example was added (example 8) showing how to use markers of different colors and sizes at station locations.


    24 November 2005

    • A new example was added to the tickmarks page (example 8) to show even more ways of formatting tickmark labels.


    20 October 2005

    • New examples have been added to the legends (example 7) and station data (example 2) applications pages. These examples are very similar: they show how to plot station data by grouping the values by their ranges, and then using a unique marker color and size for each range.


    2 October 2005


    30 September 2005

    • A new applications page has been created to show how to use the new omega_ccm and omega_ccm_driver functions, both available in NCL version 4.2.0.a033. (This version probably won't be available until November 2005.)


    8 September 2005

    • A new applications page has been created to show how to read in station data and generate visualizations of it.


    7 September 2005


    15 July 2005

    • A new example has been created in the mask applications page to show how to draw filled contours only over Africa, while filling the land and oceans everywhere else.


    30 June 2005


    14 June 2005

    • A new page has been created to show the various ways that you can control the appearance of tickmarks. Of special interest is example 4 which demonstrates how to change the formatting and precision of tickmark labels.

    24 May 2005

    • A new example has been created to show how to generate US counties. See example 10 in the map only section.


    22 April 2005

    • A new page has been created to show how to contour the ORCA grid, and also, subsequently, how to do cell mode contour fill and outline the individual cells.


    19 April 2005


    15 January 2005


    9 December 2004

    The long lag in adding new NCL examples had been due to our efforts in creating the new website.
    • Contour Levels example page.
    • Contour Effects example page: Many of the examples on this page have been updated to reflect new resources that have replaced shea_util functions for contour effects.
    • example (xy_7) has been updated to reflect the addition of gsn_csm_xy2.
    • example (color_16) demonstrates how to retrieve the RBG values of an assigned colormap.
    • example (conLab_6) demonstrates how easy it is to adjust contour labels.
    • example (panel_16) demonstrates how to shrink a panel plot down to one column for ease in publication.

    31 July 2004

    • EOF example page.
    • Meteogram example page.
    • example (xy_9) demonstrates how to draw the Mexican states.

    21 January 2004


    2 December 2003


    9 October 2003

    • Titles example page.
    • CRU data example page.
    • example (histo_10) demonstrates overlaying multiple histograms on top of each other.
    • example (xy_15) demonstrates how to draw inward facing tickmarks.
    • example (xy_17) demonstrates how to manually add a legend and text to an xy plot.
    • example (text_7) demonstrates how to put a degree symbol into a string.
    • example (lb_10) demonstrates how to put end labels onto a label bar

    14 August 2003


    22 July 2003

    • XY plot example page. This preplaces the older line example page.
    • example (lat2pop_2) demonstrates how to remap lat/lon vectors to the POP grid.
    • example (xy_3) demonstrates how to create your own xy dash pattern using the new function NhlNewDashPattern.
    • example (xy_4) demonstrates how to create your own xy marker style using the new function NhlNewMarker.
    • example (coneff_11) demonstrates how to change the size of the dots in a dot pattern using the new resource cnFillDotSizeF
    • Wavelet example page.


    19 June 2003

    • example (h_time_5) demonstrates how to remove the height label from a pressure height plot.
    • example (conLab_4) demonstrates how to create a white background box around a contour line label.
    • example (native_3) demonstrates how to create a native stereographic projection from an ASCII file.
    • example (lb_9) demonstrates how to add your own label bar using gsn_labelbar_ndc


    13 May 2003


    25 April 2003

    • eos dis example page has been updated to take advantage of the 2D coordinate plotting capability available since NCL version 4.2.0.a025. There was a bug in this capability that prevented it from working. This was fixed in NCL version 4.2.0.a028.
    • Map Tickmarks example page.
    • example (panel_1) demonstrates creating a panel plot with two manually placed plots.

    19 Feb 2003

    • seaWiFs example page.
    • example (histo_9) demonstrates how to draw a histogram on top of a map.
    • example (resize_6) demonstrates how to create a European size plot
    • example (text_5) demonstrates how to add a carriage return to a string
    • example (text_6) demonstrates how to included double quotes in a string
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