WRF Input Meteorological Data¶

The WPS program requires both 3D and surface atmospheric data to be used as initial and boundary conditions for running WRF (see Required Input for Running WRF). Different entities provide these data, and in varying formats. The WPS Ungrib program is available for processing files in Gribbed data format, to an intermediate format required by the WPS Metgrid program. If data are obtained in any form other than GRIB format, users must convert the files to the required intermediate format (and skip the ungrib process).

If using GRIB-formatted data, the WPS Ungrib program requires a particularly-formatted Vtable that uses GRIB variable-identifying codes to extract the required data. The tables below include the specific Vtable to be used for each dataset. These Vtables are available with the WPS source code, in the WPS/ungrib/Variable_Tables directory.

When possible, it is best to choose the highest spatial and temporal resolution available.

GRIB Datasets Available from NSF NCAR¶

NSF NCAR’s Research Data Archive (NSF NCAR RDA) houses and manages numerous datasets that are publically available for downloading. To use the RDA’s data,

Visit the RDA website.
Complete the short (free) registration process.
After logging in, click on the “DATA ACCESS” tab once on the dataset home page, and continue from there.

Note

Most RDA data is free for all users. A very few are restricted to university users. Click the link for each data set for any usage restrictions.

Dataset	Spatial Resolution	Temporal Resolution	Temporal Availability	Corresponding Vtable
NCEP GFS ds084.1	0.25 °	3-hourly (for first 240 hrs) 12-hourly (hrs 240-384)	2015-01-15 to current	Vtable.GFS
NCEP GDAS Final Analysis ds083.3	0.25 °	6-hourly	2015-07-08 to current	Vtable.GFS
NCEP Final Analysis (GFS-FNL) ds083.2	1 °	6-hourly	1997-07-30 to current	Vtable.GFS
Older NCEP GFS-FNL ds083.0	2.5 °	12-hourly	1997-04-01 to 2007-06-30	Vtable.GFS
NCEP/NCAR Reanalysis (NNRP) ds090.0	209 km	6-hourly	1948-01-01 to current	Vtable.NNRP
NCEP Climate Forecast System Reanalysis (CFSR) ds093.0	0.3 ° 0.5 ° 1 ° 1.9 ° 2.5 °	6-hourly	1979-01-01 to 2011-01-01	Vtable.CFSR_press_pgbh06 (pressure-level) Vtable.CFSR_sfc_flxf06 (surface)
NCEP Climate Forecast System Version 2 (CFSv2) ds094.0	0.2 ° 0.5 ° 1 ° 2.5 °	6-hourly	2011-01-01 to current	Vtable.CFSR_press_pgbh06 (pressure-level) Vtable.CFSR_sfc_flxf06 (surface)
ERA-Interim Project ds627.0	0.703 ° to 1.125 °	1-hourly (forecast) 6-hourly (analysis)	1900-01-01 to 2011-01-01	Vtable.ERA-interim_pl
ECMWF Atmospheric Reanalysis of the 20th Century (ERA 20C) ds626.0	125 km	1-hourly (forecast) 6-hourly (analysis)	1900-01-01 to 2011-01-01	Vtable.ERA-interim_pl
ECMWF Operational Model Analysis ds113.1	0.08 °	6-hourly	2016-01-01 to current	Vtable.ECMWF
Older ECMWF Operational Model Analysis ds113.0	varying	varying	2011-01-01 to 2016-03-09	Vtable.ECMWF
NCEP North American Mesoscale (NAM) ds609.0 only covers North America	12 km	6-hourly	2016-01-01 to current	Vtable.NAM
GCIP NCEP Eta ds609.2	40 km	3-hourly 6-hourly	1995-04-30 to current	Vtable.AWIP.grib1 (through 2012) Vtable.ETA.grib2 (2013+)

HRRR Archive at the University of Utah¶

NCEP High-resolution Rapid Refresh (HRRR) (3 km resolution)

HRRR Data Downloads

HRRR Download Scripting Tips

HRRR Vtable

Realtime Datasets from NOAA¶

Dataset	Spatial Resolution	How to Obtain through FTP
NCEP Pressure (pgrb2) Supplemental (pgrb2b)	0.25 ° 0.5 °	ftp://ftpprd.ncep.noaa.gov/pub/data/nccf/com/gfs/prod/gfs.YYYYMMDD/HH/atmos
NCEP Ensemble GFS	0.5 ° 1 °	ftp://ftpprd.ncep.noaa.gov/pub/data/nccf/com/gens/prod/gefs.YYYYMMDD/HH