WRF#

The Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model is a next-generation mesoscale numerical weather prediction system designed to serve both operational forecasting and atmospheric research needs. It features multiple dynamical cores, a 3-dimensional variational (3DVAR) data assimilation system, and a software architecture allowing for computational parallelism and system extensibility. WRF is suitable for a broad spectrum of applications and across scales ranging from meters to thousands of kilometres. For more details check out the WRF Home Page.

Installation at NCI#

The code for all versions is now on Github. Please follow the instructions in the README file for the branch corresponding to the version you want to use. The installation (obtaining and compiling the source code) is NCI specific.

Warning

The NCAR guides which we link to give instructions for compilation. DO NOT USE THOSE INSTRUCTIONS. They will not work. Install WRF using the instructions on Github and only follow the NCAR guides for running your simulation.

Running at NCI#

Porting WRF to NCI#

The CMS team installs new WRF versions on the NCI machine. The current and deprecated procedures are shared here for documentation purposes.

Updates#

If you have any corrections, comments or contributions, please email us on cws_help@nci.org.au so that we can continue to update over time. UPP hasn’t been ported to Gadi yet.

20 November 2022: Version v4.4.1#

Versions affected: None

Description: Version v4.4.1 is now ready to be used on Gadi. Note, WRF only has been updated.

01 September 2020: Version 4.2.1#

Versions affected: None

Description: Version v4.2.1 is now ready to be used on Gadi. Note, WRF only has been updated. As for v4.2, the WRFV3/ directory was renamed to WRF/.

11 May 2020: Version 4.2#

Versions affected: None

Description: Version v4.2 is now ready to be used on Gadi. Note, WPS and WRF have been updated. The WRFV3/ directory was renamed to WRF/.

05 March 2020: ERA-Interim METGRID table added#

Versions affected:

  • V3.9

  • V3.9.1.1

  • V4.0.2

  • V4.1.1

  • V4.1.2

  • V4.1.3

  • V4.1.4

Description: wps-era has now been ported to Gadi for the versions listed above. Note the code is using a new METGRID.TBL: METGRID.TBL.ERAI. This file has been corrected in WRF/WPS/metgrid. This file is not distributed with standard WRF but is in the code base ported to Gadi. Please clone wps-era and update your WRF code to use this capability.

Compilation: No compilation is required after updating the code.

03 March 2020: Bug#

Versions affected:

  • V4.1.1

  • V4.1.2

  • V4.1.3

  • V4.1.4

Issue description: An error has been found that affect the January 2000 case from the NCAR tutorial. In order to run this case, you will now need to use the Variable Table: Vtable.GFS.tutorial for ungrib.exe.

Compilation: No compilation is required after updating the code base from Github.