matplotlib pyplot contourf with 1-D array (vector)

[becky_s]

On Aug 25, 4:57 pm, becky_s <rda.se... at gmail.com> wrote:
> All,
>
> I’m having a problem with the matplotlib.pyplot.contourf function.  I
> have a 1-D array of latitudes (mesolat), a 1-D array of longitudes
> (mesolon), and a 1-D array of rainfall values (rain) at those
> corresponding lat, lon points.  After importing the necessary
> libraries, and reading in these 1-D arrays, I do the following
> commands:
>
> p = Basemap(projection='lcc',llcrnrlon=-108.173,llcrnrlat=26.809999,
>             urcrnrlon=-81.944664,urcrnrlat=45.730892,
>             lon_0=-97.00, lat_0=37.00, resolution='i')
>
> px,py = p(mesolon, mesolat)
>
> prplvls = [0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15]
>
> crain = p.contourf(px,py,rain,prplvls)
>
> At this point the contourf function returns an error saying “Input z
> must be a 2D array.”  However, based on the documentation (http://
> matplotlib.sourceforge.net/api/
> pyplot_api.html#matplotlib.pyplot.contourf) I thought that as long as
> px, py, and rain are the same dimensions, everything should be fine.
> Apparently that is not the case?  If 1D arrays are not allowed in
> contourf, then how can I change my data into a 2D array?
>
> Thanks in advance for the help.

I neglected to mention that these are masked arrays, due to some
missing data.  I tried using numpy.griddata:

mesolati = np.linspace(33.8,37.0,150)
mesoloni = np.linspace(-94.5,-102.9,150)
raini = griddata(mesolon,mesolat,rain,mesoloni,mesolati)

but the raini array returned was entirely masked (no values).

Thanks again, Becky