Python: copy basemap or remove data from figure

Question

I want to use a basemap figure as a background and plot things ontop. As the generation of the basemap figure (a polar stereographic plot) is quite time intensive I only want to do this once.

The second step would be to draw some wind barbs on this plot and some other wind barbs on the same plot, but without the first set of barbs.

Now either I copy the background image and then draw two different images or I can remove the first set of barbs and then draw the second, I don't mind which way to go.

Unfortunately my brain is not helping me today and I am getting nowhere. I would be grateful for any tips.

Answer 1

If the new barbs will be in the same place you can use set_UVC to update the existing object with the new wind data.

Assuming m is your basemap object, something like:

n_barb,s_barb = m.barbs(...)
#some code
n_barb.set_UVC(newU,newV,newC)

I don't have wind data to test this on though.