• ARL Home
•  > HYSPLIT FAQs
•  > HYSPLIT error message with old format meteo data grid

I purchased FNL meteorological files from NCDC for 1998, and they sent me a tape with the files. When I run the HYSPLIT model however, I get the following message:

HYSPLIT4 (Dec99) - Initialization
Warning metset: Old format meteo data grid
forrtl:severe:Program Exception -access violation

Do you think there is a problem with these files or with the installation?

The trouble you are having is most likely due to some corruption of the meteorological data. The message indicating "Old Format" data means that the model doesn't see an INDEX record as the first record of the data set. Data after 1995 all have index records. There are several utility programs in the \Hysplit4\metedata directory. I suggest you try chk_rec.exe from the command line prompt. It should return ouput as follows:

 Opened file:            0           1           1           0
 Grid size and lrec:          129         129       16641       16691
 Header record size:          900
FNL   0 0  90.00    .00  60.00 -80.00 190.50    .00  90.00  65.00  65.00  90.00
 0 1 1 0 0 012INDX   0  .0000000E+00  .0000000E+00
 0 1 1 0 0 012PRSS   9  .2015748E+01  .1015353E+04
 0 1 1 0 0 012MSLP   5  .1259843E+00  .1015522E+04
 0 1 1 0 0 012TMPS   5  .1259843E+00  .2995697E+03
 0 1 1 0 6 012TPP6  -5  .1230315E-03  .0000000E+00
 0 1 1 0 6 012UMOF   1  .7874016E-02  .2523432E-02
 0 1 1 0 6 012VMOF   2  .1574803E-01  .1020415E-01
 0 1 1 0 6 012SHTF  10  .4031496E+01  .4000000E+01
 0 1 1 0 6 012LHTF   9  .2015748E+01  .7000000E+02
 0 1 1 0 6 012DSWF   9  .2015748E+01  .9738987E+03
 0 1 1 0 0 012T02M   5  .1259843E+00  .2988349E+03
 0 1 1 0 0 012RH2M   7  .5039370E+00  .7582568E+02
 0 1 1 0 0 012U10M   4  .6299213E-01  .6966920E+00
 0 1 1 0 0 012V10M   5  .1259843E+00 -.4386642E+01
 0 1 1 0 0 012SOLW  -1  .1968504E-02  .0000000E+00

The code is provided in the ..\source directory. It is a simple program and lets you examine the structure of the meteorological data file. The index record is always the first record and is indicated by the field "INDX" You should check out other data files that you know work correctly to examine the differences.

The problem is either with the tape or the process used to transfer the data from the tape to your computer. You need to be sure that the software you used to read the tape did a "binary" rather than ASCII read.

Roland Draxler