How to correctly define area for data download

Datasets and Usage
1

I’m new to using geographical data. I was exploring the ERA5 download page since some of the variables are useful for my research.

I’m stuck at defining a subregion, which is necessary since I don’t need data for the whole world. In fact, I only need information for Colombia. I know that the area I’m interested in is delimited by 79W to 67W and 13N to 5S. Longitude is very straight forward (13,-5) but I don’t know the correct value for east and west since I’m not familiar with this!

Any help is much appreciated

2

Values west of the Greenwich meridian are denote with a negative decimal value. For you this would be -79 and -67, with more negative values more to the west (until you hit the date line). The same goes for the equator, with negative values being the southern hemisphere. You should use decimal values in the subset selection.

3

Thanks a lot! I also just read your reply in another post about using R to download the data. All very useful information.