y be masked arrays, but masked
*X*, *Y* are not supported at present.

Barbs are traditionally used in meteorology as a way to plot the speed
and direction of wind observations, but can technically be used to
plot any two dimensional vector quantity.  As opposed to arrows, which
give vector magnitude by the length of the arrow, the barbs give more
quantitative information about the vector magnitude by putting slanted
lines or a triangle for various increments in magnitude, as show
schematically below::

  :                   /\    \
  :                  /  \    \
  :                 /    \    \    \
  :                /      \    \    \
  :               ------------------------------

The largest increment is given by a triangle (or "flag"). After those
come full lines (barbs). The smallest increment is a half line.  There
is only, of course, ever at most 1 half line.  If the magnitude is
small and only needs a single half-line and no full lines or
triangles, the half-line is offset from the end of the barb so that it
can be easily distinguished from barbs with a single full line.  The
magnitude for the barb shown above would nominally be 65, using the
standard increments of 50, 10, and 5.

See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_barb.

Parameters
----------
X, Y : 1D or 2D array-like, optional
    The x and y coordinates of the barb locations. See *pivot* for how the
    barbs are drawn to the x, y positions.

    If not given, they will be generated as a uniform integer meshgrid based
    on the dimensions of *U* and *V*.

    If *X* and *Y* are 1D but *U*, *V* are 2D, *X*, *Y* are expanded to 2D
    using ``X, Y = np.meshgrid(X, Y)``. In this case ``len(X)`` and ``len(Y)``
    must match the column and row dimensions of *U* and *V*.

U, V : 1D or 2D array-like
    The x and y components of the barb shaft.

C : 1D or 2D array-like, optional
    Numeric data that defines the barb colors by colormapping via *norm* and
    *cmap*.

    This does not support explicit colors. If you want to set colors directly,
    use *barbcolor* instead.

length : float, default: 7
    Length of the barb in points; the other parts of the barb
    are scaled against this.

pivot : {'tip', 'middle'} or float, default: 'tip'
    The part of the arrow that is anchored to the *X*, *Y* grid. The barb
    rotates about this point. This can also be a number, which shifts the
    start of the barb that many points away from grid point.

barbcolor : color or color sequence
    The color of all parts of the barb except for the flags.  This parameter
    is analogous to the *edgecolor* parameter for polygons, which can be used
    instead. However this parameter will override facecolor.

flagcolor : color or color sequence
    The color of any flags on the barb.  This parameter is analogous to the
    *facecolor* parameter for polygons, which can be used instead. However,
    this parameter will override facecolor.  If this is not set (and *C* has
    not either) then *flagcolor* will be set to match *barbcolor* so that the
    barb has a uniform color. If *C* has been set, *flagcolor* has no effect.

sizes : dict, optional
    A dictionary of coefficients specifying the ratio of a given
    feature to the length of the barb. Only those values one wishes to
    override need to be included.  These features include:

    - 'spacing' - space between features (flags, full/half barbs)
    - 'height' - height (distance from shaft to top) of a flag or full barb
    - 'width' - width of a flag, twice the width of a full barb
    - 'emptybarb' - radius of the circle used for low magnitudes

fill_empty : bool, default: False
    Whether the empty barbs (circles) that are drawn should be filled with
    the flag color.  If they are not filled, the center is transparent.

rounding : bool, default: True
    Whether the vector magnitude should be rounded when allocating barb
    components.  If True, the magnitude is rounded to the nearest multiple
    of the half-barb increment.  If False, the magnitude is simply truncated
    to the next lowest multiple.

barb_increments : dict, optional
    A dictionary of increments specifying values to associate with
    different parts of the barb. Only those values one wishes to
    override need to be included.

    - 'half' - half barbs (Default is 5)
    - 'full' - full barbs (Default is 10)
    - 'flag' - flags (default is 50)

flip_barb : bool or array-like of bool, default: False
    Whether the lines and flags should point opposite to normal.
    Normal behavior is for the barbs and lines to point right (comes from wind
    barbs having these features point towards low pressure in the Northern
    Hemisphere).

    A single value is applied to all barbs. Individual barbs can be flipped by
    passing a bool array of the same size as *U* and *V*.

Returns
-------
barbs : `~matplotlib.quiver.Barbs`

Other Parameters
----------------
data : indexable object, optional
    DATA_PARAMETER_PLACEHOLDER

**kwargs
    The barbs can further be customized using `.PolyCollection` keyword
    arguments:

    %(PolyCollection:kwdoc)s
)