Graphing Program Answer#1

First, you have to plot four different parameters for five cities. To do this you use a meteogram created with SFGRAM. So, to start off, run SFGRAM and read in the defaults file:
prompt% sfgram

SFFILE Surface data file $GEMPAKHOME/data/hrcbob.sfc DATTIM Date/time all STATION Stations lax;phl;clt;pwm;sea TRACE1 Parms/colors/range/witness skyc:1:2;brbk:1:2/5;6!;;wsym:1:2;tmpc:1:2/;;11;3 TRACE2 Parms/colors/range/witness skyc:1:2;brbk:1:2/5;6!;;wsym:1:2;tmpc:1:2/;;11;3 TRACE3 Parms/colors/range/witness skyc:1:2;brbk:1:2/5;6!;;wsym:1:2;tmpc:1:2/;;11;3 TRACE4 Parms/colors/range/witness skyc:1:2;brbk:1:2/5;6!;;wsym:1:2;tmpc:1:2/;;11;3 TRACE5 Parms/colors/range/witness skyc:1:2;brbk:1:2/5;6!;;wsym:1:2;tmpc:1:2/;;11;3 NTRACE Number of traces 5 TAXIS Time1-time2-tinc;lbl;gln;tck BORDER Background color/dash/width 2/1/2 MARKER Marker color/type/size/width/hw 0 TITLE Title color/line/title 32/0 CLEAR Clear screen flag y DEVICE Graphics device xw PANEL Panel location/color/dash/width 0 TEXT Text size/font/width/hw flag .8//1.5/sw Parameters requested: SFFILE,DATTIM,STATION,TRACE1,TRACE2,TRACE3,TRACE4, TRACE5,NTRACE,TAXIS,BORDER,MARKER,TITLE,CLEAR,DEVICE,PANEL,TEXT. GEMPAK-SFGRAM>restore $GEMPAKHOME/defaults/sfgram.nts GEMPAK-SFGRAM>d SFFILE Surface data file DATTIM Date/time all STATION Stations TRACE1 Parms/colors/range/witness tmpf:1:2;dwpf:1:2/2;3 TRACE2 Parms/colors/range/witness ;vsby::2/8;4!pmsl::2;;/28 TRACE3 Parms/colors/range/witness ;darr:1:2;sknt:1:2/1;22;12!gust/5 TRACE4 Parms/colors/range/witness clds;skyk:.6:2/15;6!;;wsym:1:1/3 TRACE5 Parms/colors/range/witness stha:1:2;sthe:1:2/22;19 NTRACE Number of traces 5 TAXIS Time1-time2-tinc;lbl;gln;tck BORDER Background color/dash/width 2/1/2 MARKER Marker color/type/size/width/hw 0 TITLE Title color/line/title 1/0 CLEAR Clear screen flag y DEVICE Graphics device xw PANEL Panel location/color/dash/width 0 TEXT Text size/font/width/hw flag .8//1.5/sw GEMPAK-SFGRAM>

You must change some of the settings that the default files put in for you, , as well as SFFILE and STATION. This is because TRACE1 through TRACE5 are not set to display what the question asked.
First, let's set the file and stations:
GEMPAK-SFGRAM>sffile=$GEMPAKHOME/defaults/sfgram.nts GEMPAK-SFGRAM>station=lax;phl;clt;pwm;sea

You can leave taxis blank for this exercise.
TRACE1, TRACE2, TRACE3, TRACE4, and TRACE5 will all be identical because for each city because you will be looking at the same four parameters. With a list of cities , TRACE1 will correspond to the first city, and so on. So, TRACE1 will be for Los Angeles (LAX) and TRACE2 will be for Philadelphia (PHL), etc. for this exercise.
Now, let`s set up the parameters. We're going to put the sky symbol(skyc) and weather barb in knots (BRBK) on the left, and the the weather symbol (WSYS) and temperature in degrees C (TMPC) on the right. They will be in these positions with these colors:
SKYC---Position 1--Color 5 (Yellow) BRBK---Position 2--Color 6 (Cyan) WSYM---Position 3--Color 11(Pink) TMPC---Position 4--Color 3(Green)

The line will be the default size 1, with line width 2:
GEMPAK-SFGRAM>trace1=skyc:1:2;brbk:1:2/5;6!;;wsym:1:2;tmpc:1:2/;;11;3

Because TRACE1 is the same as TRACE2 throught TRACE5, you can enter this shortcut:
GEMPAK-SFGRAM> trace2=&trace1 GEMPAK-SFGRAM> trace3=&trace1 GEMPAK-SFGRAM> trace4=&trace1 GEMPAK-SFGRAM> trace5=&trace1 GEMPAK-SFGRAM>d SFFILE Surface data file $GEMPAKHOME/data/hrcbob.sfc DATTIM Date/time all STATION Stations lax;phl;clt;pwm;sea TRACE1 Parms/colors/range/witness skyc:1:2;brbk:1:2/5;6!;;wsym:1:2;tmpc:1:2/;;11;3 TRACE2 Parms/colors/range/witness skyc:1:2;brbk:1:2/5;6!;;wsym:1:2;tmpc:1:2/;;11;3 TRACE3 Parms/colors/range/witness skyc:1:2;brbk:1:2/5;6!;;wsym:1:2;tmpc:1:2/;;11;3 TRACE4 Parms/colors/range/witness skyc:1:2;brbk:1:2/5;6!;;wsym:1:2;tmpc:1:2/;;11;3 TRACE5 Parms/colors/range/witness skyc:1:2;brbk:1:2/5;6!;;wsym:1:2;tmpc:1:2/;;11;3 NTRACE Number of traces 5 TAXIS Time1-time2-tinc;lbl;gln;tck BORDER Background color/dash/width 2/1/2 MARKER Marker color/type/size/width/hw 0 TITLE Title color/line/title 32/0 CLEAR Clear screen flag y DEVICE Graphics device xw PANEL Panel location/color/dash/width 0 TEXT Text size/font/width/hw flag .8//1.5/sw GEMPAK-SFGRAM>

There are several places you can get tripped up:

Not using the exclamation mark "!" to separate the titles, half on the right, half on the left.
Putting a symbol in position four. You can only put characters or symbols in position 1-3. This is mentioned briefly in the sfgram phelp file. This would either give you an error message or overlap the data in position 4 and 3.
...to be continued.

GEMPAK-SFGRAM>r SFGRAM PARAMETERS Surface file: $GEMPAKHOME/data/hrcbob.sfc Number of times: 25 Time range: 910819/06-20/06 Traces: LAX skyc:1:2;brbk:1:2/5;6!;;wsym:1:2;tmpc:1:2/;;11;3 PHL skyc:1:2;brbk:1:2/5;6!;;wsym:1:2;tmpc:1:2/;;11;3 CLT skyc:1:2;brbk:1:2/5;6!;;wsym:1:2;tmpc:1:2/;;11;3 PWM skyc:1:2;brbk:1:2/5;6!;;wsym:1:2;tmpc:1:2/;;11;3 SEA skyc:1:2;brbk:1:2/5;6!;;wsym:1:2;tmpc:1:2/;;11;3 Enter <cr> to accept parameters or type EXIT:

Why are the parameters organized that way?