diff --git a/scripts/python/met/mprbase.py b/scripts/python/met/mprbase.py
index c50ab89a29..57e5769015 100644
--- a/scripts/python/met/mprbase.py
+++ b/scripts/python/met/mprbase.py
@@ -4,15 +4,18 @@
 
 class mpr_data():
 
-    def read_mpr(input_file, usecols=range(1,37), header=None,
-                 delim_whitespace=True, keep_default_na=False,
-                 skiprows=1, dtype=str):
-        mpr_data = pd.read_csv(input_file, header=header,
-                               delim_whitespace=delim_whitespace,
-                               keep_default_na=keep_default_na,
-                               skiprows=skiprows, usecols=usecols,
-                               dtype=dtype).values.tolist()
-        return mpr_data
+   # Read a text file with N columns and returns the list of N column data
+   # Skip first "col_start" columns if col_start is not 0.
+   def read_mpr(input_file, col_last, col_start = 0, header=None,
+                delim_whitespace=True, keep_default_na=False,
+                skiprows=1, dtype=str):
+      mpr_data = pd.read_csv(input_file, header=header,
+                             delim_whitespace=delim_whitespace,
+                             keep_default_na=keep_default_na,
+                             skiprows=skiprows,
+                             usecols=range(col_start,col_last+1),
+                             dtype=dtype).values.tolist()
+      return mpr_data
 
 
 ########################################################################