diff --git a/lib/netcdf/Makefile.lammps b/lib/netcdf/Makefile.lammps
index feeea61a0f..040df73fd0 100644
--- a/lib/netcdf/Makefile.lammps
+++ b/lib/netcdf/Makefile.lammps
@@ -14,5 +14,6 @@ endif
 ifneq ($(shell which ncmpidump),)
 PNETCDF_PATH = ($shell which ncmpidump | sed -e 's,bin/ncmpidump,,')
 netcdf_SYSINC = -DLMP_HAS_PNETCDF -I$(PNETCDF_PATH)/include
-netcdf_SYSLIB = -L$(PNETCDF_PATH)/lib -lpnetcdf
+netcdf_SYSLIB = -lpnetcdf
+netcdf_SYSPATH = -L$(PNETCDF_PATH)/lib
 endif
diff --git a/lib/netcdf/README b/lib/netcdf/README
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..00db8df001
--- /dev/null
+++ b/lib/netcdf/README
@@ -0,0 +1,43 @@
+The Makefile.lammps file in this directory is used when building
+LAMMPS with packages that make use of the NetCDF library or its
+parallel version.  The file has several settings needed to compile
+and link LAMMPS with the NetCDF and parallel NetCDF support.
+For any regular NetCDF installation, all required flags should be
+autodetected. Please note that parallel NetCDF support is
+beneficial only when you run on a machine with very many processors
+like an IBM BlueGene or Cray. For most people regular NetCDF
+support should be sufficient and not cause any performance
+penalties.
+
+If you have problems compiling or linking, you may have to set
+the flags manually. There are three makefile variables
+
+1) netcdf_SYSINC
+This is for setting preprocessor options and include file paths.
+Set -DLMP_HAS_NETCDF, if you have NetCDF installed.
+Set -DLMP_HAS_PNETCDF, if you have parallel NetCDF installed.
+You can have either or both defines set. If none of these are
+set, LAMMPS will compile, but the NetCDF enabled functionality
+will not be available.
+In addition you may have to point to the folder with the include
+with -I/path/to/netcdf/include
+
+Example for a Fedora 24 machine with serial NetCDF installed as
+netcdf-devel-4.4.0-3.fc24.x86_64 RPM package:
+
+netcdf_SYSINC = -DLMP_HAS_NETCDF -I/usr/include -I/usr/include/hdf
+
+2) netcdf_SYSLIB
+This is the setting for all required libraries that need to be linked to.
+
+Example for a Fedora 24 machine with serial NetCDF installed as
+netcdf-devel-4.4.0-3.fc24.x86_64 RPM package:
+
+netcdf_SYSLIB = -lnetcdf
+
+3) netcdf_SYSPATH
+This is the setting for the path of directories with the NetCDF libraries.
+Typically, this will be of the form -L/path/to/netcdf/lib
+
+In the example from above, it can be left empty, because the Linux
+distribution provided libraries are installed in a system library location.