How to create textbox on figure using first row in geodataframe? - matplotlib

Question

I am looking to plot a textbox on a figure displaying the 5-Day NHC forecast cone for a tropical cyclone, in this case Hurricane Dorian. I have the four shapefiles (track line, cone, points, and watches/warnings). On the figure I want to display the following from the first row of points_gdf (yellow circles in the image; the two commented out lines near the bottom of the code is what I tried initially):
Latest Tracking Information: (regular string; below are variables from points_gdf)
LAT LON
MAXWIND
GUST
MSLP
TCSPD
track_line_gdf = geopandas.read_file('nhc/al052019_5day_037/al052019-037_5day_lin.shp')
cone_gdf = geopandas.read_file('nhc/al052019_5day_037/al052019-037_5day_pgn.shp')
points_gdf = geopandas.read_file('nhc/al052019_5day_037/al052019-037_5day_pts.shp')
ww_gdf = geopandas.read_file('nhc/al052019_5day_037/al052019-037_ww_wwlin.shp')
fig = plt.figure(figsize=(14,12))
fig.set_facecolor('white')
ax = plt.subplot(1,1,1, projection=map_crs)
ax.set_extent([-88,-70,25,50])
ax.add_geometries(cone_gdf['geometry'], crs=data_crs, facecolor='white',
edgecolor='black', linewidth=0.25, alpha=0.4)
ax.add_geometries(track_line_gdf['geometry'], crs=data_crs, facecolor='none',
edgecolor='black', linewidth=2)
sc = ax.scatter(points_gdf['LON'], points_gdf['LAT'], transform=data_crs,
zorder=10, c=points_gdf['MAXWIND'], cmap='jet')
ww_colors = {'Tropical Storm Watch': 'gold',
'Hurricane Watch': 'pink',
'Tropical Storm Warning': 'tab:blue',
'Hurricane Warning': 'tab:red'}
for ww_type in ww_colors.keys():
ww_subset = ww_gdf[ww_gdf['TCWW']==ww_type]
ax.add_geometries(ww_subset['geometry'], facecolor='none',
edgecolor=ww_colors[ww_type], crs=data_crs,
linewidth=5)
markers = [plt.Line2D([0,0],[0,0],color=color, marker='o', linestyle='') for color in ww_colors.values()]
Name = ww_gdf['STORMNAME'][0]
Storm = ww_gdf['STORMTYPE'][0]
AdvDate = ww_gdf['ADVDATE'][0]
AdvNum = ww_gdf['ADVISNUM'][0]
props = dict(boxstyle='round', facecolor='wheat', alpha=0.5)
plt.colorbar(sc, label='Wind Speed (mph)')
plt.title(Storm + ' ' + Name + ' - ' + AdvDate + ' Advisory', fontsize=14, fontweight='bold')
plt.legend(markers, ww_colors.keys())
plt.text(0.05, 0.95, 'Testing', transform=ax.transAxes, va='top', bbox=props)

Answer 1

It would help to know either what error you're running into, or what exactly isn't behaving how you want. I can slightly tweak your code to make this:
import cartopy.crs as ccrs
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
fig = plt.figure(figsize=(14,12))
fig.set_facecolor('white')
ax = plt.subplot(1,1,1, projection=ccrs.LambertConformal())
plt.title('Storm Advisory', fontsize=14, fontweight='bold')
points_gds = pd.DataFrame(dict(GUST=[165.0], LAT=[26.8],
LON=[-78.3], MSLP=[930.2]))
storminfo = f'''Max Wind Gusts: {points_gds.iloc[0]['GUST']:.0f} mph
Current Latitude: {points_gds.iloc[0]['LAT']:.1f}
Current Longitude: {points_gds.iloc[0]['LON']:.1f}
Central Pressure: {points_gds.iloc[0]['MSLP']:.2f} mb'''
props = dict(boxstyle='round', facecolor='wheat', alpha=0.5)
plt.text(0.05, 0.95, 'Testing', transform=ax.transAxes, va='top', bbox=props)
ax.coastlines()
ax.set_extent([-88,-70,25,50])
which produces this image:
To make that work I needed to change round (which is a Python built-in function) to the string 'round'. The text is formatted using f-strings ("formatted string literals"), and enclosed as a triple-quoted string to avoid needing to manually put in the newline ('\n') characters. Python's docs can tell you more about how to control the formatting of individual items.