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

3. The WRF Preprocessing System (WPS)

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

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

- Installing the WPS............................................................................... 3-5

- 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

- Using MPAS Output for WRF Initial and Boundary Conditions..3-37

- Creating and Editing Vtables........................................................... 3-39

- Writing Static Data to the Geogrid Binary Format....................... 3-41

- Creating an Urban Fraction Field from NLCD Data .................. 3-44

- Description of Namelist Variables.................................................. 3-46

- Description of GEOGRID.TBL Options......................................... 3-52

- Description of index Options........................................................... 3-55

- Description of METGRID.TBL Options.......................................... 3-58

- Available Interpolation Options in Geogrid and Metgrid............. 3-61

- Land Use and Soil Categories in the Static Data........................ 3-64

- WPS Output Fields........................................................................... 3-66

4. WRF Initialization

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

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

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

5. WRF Model

- Introduction .......................................................................................... 5-2

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

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

- Examples of namelists for various applications........................... 5-38

- Check Output .................................................................................... 5-40

- Trouble Shooting............................................................................... 5-41

- Physics and Dynamics Options...................................................... 5-42

- Summary of PBL Physics Options………………………………. 5-58

- Summary of Microphysics Options………………………………. 5-59

- Summary of Cumulus Parameterization Options………………. 5-62

- Summary of Radiation Physics Options.................................... 5-63

- Description of Namelist Variables.................................................. 5-66

- WRF Output Fields......................................................................... 5-121

- Special WRF Output Variables.................................................5-129

6. WRF Data Assimilation

- Introduction........................................................................................... 6-2

- Installing WRFDA for 3DVAR Run…............................................... 6-4

- Installing WRFPLUS and WRFDA for 4DVAR Run....................... 6-9

- Running Observation Preprocessor (OBSPROC) ...................... 6-10

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

- Radiance Data Assimilations in WRFDA...................................... 6-23

- Radar Data Assimilation in WRFDA...........................................6-34

- Precipitation Data Assimilation in WRFDA 4D-Var…………….. 6-37

- Updating WRF boundary conditions............................................. .6-39

- Background Error and Running GEN_BE...................................6-43

- WRFDA Diagnostics......................................................................... 6-51

- Generating Ensembles with RANDOMCV..................................6-55

- Hybrid Data Assimilation in WRFDA.............................................. 6-56

- ETKF Data Assimilation............................................................. 6-62

- Additional WRFDA Options............................................................. 6-67

- Description of Namelist Variables.................................................. 6-70

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

- RIP....................................................................................................... 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......................................................................... 10-10

- v_interp............................................................................................. 10-12

- proc_oml.f........................................................................................ 10-14

- Tools................................................................................................. 10-15

Appendix A: WRF-Fire

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

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

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

- namelist.fire.......................................................................................... A-6

- Running WRF_Fire on real data....................................................... A-7

- Fire state variables........................................................................... A-13

- WRF-Fire software .......................................................................... A-13