Upgrade MET to use METbaseimage version 3.5

[JohnHalleyGotway]

Describe the Enhancement

METbaseimage version 3.5 upgrades the development environment from using Python 3.12 to Python 3.14. I had originally merged the change from 3.4 to 3.5 into develop via pull request #3398. However, that change produced a segfault in the unit test for the TC-Diag tool as seen in this GHA testing workflow run. This hotfix to revert develop back to 3.4 triggered this GHA testing workflow run. That run completed successfully but differences were flagged because the truth data still needed to be updated.

Big picture, upgrading to METbaseimage 3.5 seems to have caused a segfault in TC-Diag. I observed that segfault in the call to execute the TC-Diag Python code which reads a NetCDF file and derives diagnostics. Some options to consider are...

• Testing the docker image in which the segfault occurred.
• Perhaps switching from Pandas 2 to 3 is involved.
• Check for any recent updates to the Python code in Robert DeMaria's source repository (https://github.com/robertdemariacira/tc_diag_driver/tree/main) although the last update was 3 years ago.

This issue is to replicate the segfault, diagnose the underlying problem, and resolve the issue so that TC-Diag runs and produces the same output using both Python 3.12 and Python 3.14. We should upgrade to using METbaseimage version 3.5 prior to the upcoming METplus 13.0 coordinated release.

Time Estimate

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Issues should represent approximately 1 to 3 days of work.

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Define Related Issue(s)

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• METplus, MET, METdataio, METviewer, METexpress, METcalcpy, METplotpy
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Enhancement Checklist

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• Complete the issue definition above, including the Time Estimate and Funding Source.
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