1. Overview

- Introduction ........................................................................................... 1-1

- The WRF Modeling System Program Components...................... 1-2

2. Software Installation

- Introduction............................................................................................ 2-1

- Required Compilers and Scripting Languages............................. 2-2

- Required/Optional Libraries to Download...................................... 2-3

- Post-Processing Utilities.................................................................... 2-4

- UNIX Environment Settings................................................................ 2-4

- Building the WRF Code...................................................................... 2-5

- Building the WPS Code...................................................................... 2-6

- Building the WRFDA Code (for 3DVAR)........................................... 2-7

- Building the WRFDA Code (for 4DVAR) …………………………...2-9

3. The WRF Preprocessing System (WPS)

- Introduction.......................................................................................... 3-1

- Function of Each WPS Program...................................................... 3-2

- Installing the WPS.............................................................................. 3-4

- Running the WPS............................................................................... 3-8

- Creating Nested Domains with the WPS.................................... 3-20

- Selecting Between USGS and MODIS-based
Land Use Data.................................................................................. 3-22

- Selecting Static Data for the Gravity Wave Drag Scheme......... 3-23

- Using Multiple Meteorological Data Sources.............................. 3-23

- Using Non-isobaric Meteorological Datasets .............................3-26

- Alternative Initialization of Lake SSTs…………………………… 3-27

- Parallelism in the WPS................................................................... 3-28

- Checking WPS Output..................................................................... 3-29

- WPS Utility Programs...................................................................... 3-30

- Writing Meteorological Data to the Intermediate Format.......... 3-34

- Required Meteorological Fields for Running WRF.....................3-36

- Creating and Editing Vtables......................................................... 3-37

- Writing Static Data to the Geogrid Binary Format....................... 3-39

- Creating an Urban Fraction Field from NLCD Data .................. 3-42

- Description of Namelist Variables................................................ 3-44

- Description of GEOGRID.TBL Options......................................... 3-49

- Description of index Options.......................................................... 3-52

- Description of METGRID.TBL Options......................................... 3-55

- Available Interpolation Options in Geogrid and Metgrid............ 3-58

- Land Use and Soil Categories in the Static Data...................... 3-61

- WPS Output Fields........................................................................... 3-63

4. WRF Initialization

- Introduction.......................................................................................... 4-1

- Initialization for Ideal Cases............................................................. 4-3

- Initialization for Real Data Cases.................................................... 4-6

5. WRF Model

- Introduction ......................................................................................... 5-1

- Installing WRF .................................................................................... 5-2

- Running WRF ..................................................................................... 5-8

- Examples of namelists for various applications........................ 5-35

- Check Output .................................................................................... 5-37

- Trouble Shooting.............................................................................. 5-38

- Physics and Dynamics Options.................................................... 5-38

- Summary of PBL Physics Options………………………………. 5-52

- Summary of Microphysics Options………………………………. 5-54

- Summary of Cumulus Parameterization Options………………. 5-56

- Summary of Radiation Physics Options.................................... 5-57

- Description of Namelist Variables................................................ 5-60

- WRF Output Fields......................................................................... 5-115

- Special WRF Output Variables.................................................5-122

6. WRF Data Assimilation

- Introduction.......................................................................................... 6-1

- Installing WRFDA for 3D-Var Run…................................................ 6-4

- Installing WRFPLUS and WRFDA for 4D-Var Run....................... 6-8

- Running Observation Preprocessor (OBSPROC) ...................... 6-9

- Running WRFDA.............................................................................. 6-14

- Radiance Data Assimilations in WRFDA.................................... 6-22

- Radar Data Assimilation.............................................................6-32

- Precipitation Data Assimilation in WRFDA 4D-Var…………….. 6-34

- Updating WRF boundary conditions............................................. 6-37

- Background Error and Running GEN_BE..................................6-39

- Additional WRFDA Exercises......................................................... 6-45

- WRFDA Diagnostics........................................................................ 6-49

- Generating Ensembles with RANDOMCV..................................6-53

- Hybrid Data Assimilation................................................................ 6-54

- ETKF Data Assimilation............................................................. 6-58

- Description of Namelist Variables................................................ 6-63

7. Objective Analysis (OBSGRID)

- Introduction.......................................................................................... 7-1

- Program Flow...................................................................................... 7-2

- Source of Observations..................................................................... 7-3

- Objective Analysis techniques in OBSGRID.................................. 7-4

- Quality Control for Observations...................................................... 7-6

- Additional Observations.................................................................... 7-7

- Surface FDDA option.......................................................................... 7-7

- Objective Analysis on Model Nests................................................. 7-8

- How to run OBSGRID......................................................................... 7-8

- Output Files....................................................................................... 7-10

- Plot Utilities........................................................................................ 7-13

- Observations Format....................................................................... 7-15

- OBSGRID Namelist......................................................................... 7-19

8. WRF Software

- WRF Build Mechanism...................................................................... 8-1

- Registry................................................................................................. 8-5

- I/O Applications Program Interface (I/O API)................................ 8-14

- Timekeeping..................................................................................... 8-14

- Software Documentation................................................................ 8-15

- Performance...................................................................................... 8-15

9. Post-Processing Programs

- Introduction.......................................................................................... 9-1

- NCL....................................................................................................... 9-2

- RIP4.................................................................................................... 9-20

- ARWpost............................................................................................ 9-29

- UPP .................................................................................................... 9-36

- VAPOR................................................................................................ 9-38

10. Utilities and Tools

- Introduction........................................................................................ 10-1

- read_wrf_nc....................................................................................... 10-1

- iowrf..................................................................................................... 10-5

- p_interp.............................................................................................. 10-6

- TC Bogus Scheme........................................................................... 10-9

- v_interp............................................................................................. 10-11

- proc_oml.f........................................................................................ 10-13

- Tools........................................................................................................... 10-14

Appendix A: WRF-Fire

- Introduction.......................................................................................... A-1

- WRF_Fire in idealized cases........................................................... A-3

- Fire variables in namelist.input ....................................................... A-4

- namelist.fire......................................................................................... A-5

- Running WRF_Fire on real data...................................................... A-6

- Fire state variables........................................................................... A-12

- WRF-Fire software .......................................................................... A-12