WRF 3.0 Release Information

Background

The WRF Release Committee was established under the policies for NCAR's administration of the WRF contributed code. The document describing those is WRF Contributed Code Repository and Release Administration. The Release Committee's basic purpose is to oversee the periodic major releases of WRF.

The next major release of WRF will be V3.0, targeted for March, 2008. The timeline for input to, and preparation of, this release is given below. Developers seeking to have their codes for new capabilities added to the repository should review Information for Code Contributors. Contributors may also write to wrfhelp for information and for contacting the Developers' Committee, which oversees code contributions to the WRF system. (Developers' Committee described in WRF Contributed Code Repository and Release Administration.)

V3.0 Candidate Features

The candidate features for WRF V3.0 include the following. Inclusion in the release of any code is dependent on the code's meeting the timeline and passing all required tests. This list of candidate features is neither guaranteed nor exclusive and is dependent on resources. Developers may submit code for consideration for V3.0 as long as the timeline below is adhered to and they follow the procedures for contribution. They may contact any Release Committee member or wrfhelp to get information on the addition of their code.

• Global WRF
• Variable time step
• Infrastructure enhancements
• Updated coupling functionality
• WRF-NMM infrastructure
• WRF-Chem
• WRF/WRF-Var merge
• WRF-Var 3.0
• Digital filter
• Miscellaneous physics
• Preprocessor updates
• Time series outputting
• NMM serial compilation
  

Timeline

The timeline for the V3.0 release is as follows. "RC" refers to the Release Committee; "DC" refers to the Developers' Committee.

December 30, 2007

3-mo advance date (R-3m)

• Within this 3-mo period the new features must be coming into the repository. The actual trunk commit deadline is 2 mos.
• Check on new features for the release is discussed by the RC (also by the Developers' Comm).

January 30, 2008

2-mo advance date (R-2m)

• Date by which all new code/features must be in the repository (freeze).
• Tests for new features are included in regression test suite. Regression test data sets finalized.

February 29, 2008

1-mo advance date (R-1m)

• Bug fixes still accommodated though repository frozen.
• Full set of regression tests run on machines at NCAR.
  

March 10, 2008

3-week advance date (R-3w)

• Software-related problems uncovered by testing assigned to members of the Developers' Committee (DC). If the problem can't be fixed, DC gives RC one of three recommendations: (i) accept code as is, (ii) remove code from release, or (iii) delay the release date. RC makes the decision with respect to the release.
  

March 17, 2008

2-week advance date (R-2w)

• Final round of large testing. RC and DC meetings focus on status of code and testing.
  

March 24, 2008

1-week advance date (R-1w)

• DC certifies (final approval) code for release. Code packaged and staged for release.
  

March 31, 2008

Target release date.

Release Committee Members

Jordan Powers- Chairman
Jimy Dudhia
Wei Wang
Bill Skamarock
Dave Gill
Jamie Wolff
Dale Barker
Tom Black
Georg Grell
John Michalakes