The mission of this working group is to facilitate software porting and development needed to enable WRF users to view and analyze WRF model output data for their scientific and operational forecasting needs. Initially, we need to ensure that WRF users have access to a similar set of tools that MM5 users have. In addition, we feel that the development of a new community model offers the opportunity for the development of new analysis and display tools. We hope to pursue all of these efforts with active participation from the WRF user community.
Working Group 6 (Post-Processing) has been promoting and overseeing the active development of tools to facilitate the analysis and visualization of output data from the WRF model. Several tools are now available or are becoming available as a result of the hard work of many individuals and facilities.
Four post-processing tools are available from, and supported by, NCAR. They are:
http://www.mmm.ucar.edu/wrf/users/graphics/WRF-post-processing.htm
and can be downloaded from
http://www.mmm.ucar.edu/wrf/users/download/get_source.html
The NCAR-supported tools generally can ingest only data from the Advanced Research WRF (ARW) model. For processing WRF-Nonhydrostatic Mesoscale Model (NMM) data, see the description of "WRF-POST" below.
• NCEP “WRF-POST” for conversion to GRIB format, on the AWIPS grid or other map projection-based grids
NSSL and NCEP have completed a WRF-to-GRIB converter called WRF-POST, which produces WRF model output on NWS standard output levels (pressure, height, etc.) and the standard AWIPS output grids, as well as other map-projection-based grids (Lambert, polar-stereographic, etc.), in NWS and WMO standard GRIB format. This tool is essential for making WRF model output accessible to the operational weather forecasting community. The tool has already been implemented at NCEP, FSL, and AFWA. Also, unlike the NCAR-supported tools listed above, WRF-POST can process output from both the Advanced Research WRF (ARW) and the Nonhydrostatic Mesoscale Model (NMM). See the link for more information on obtaining and using this software.
• University of Wisconsin WRF-to-GEMPAK converter
Steven Decker at the University of Wisconsin has developed a utility that converts WRF system NetCDF output files into GEMPAK-ingestible files. GEMPAK, which stands for General Meteorological Package, is a popular meteorological analysis and plotting tool described at this Unidata web site. See the link for more information on obtaining and using the WRF-to-GEMPAK conversion software.
• IDV compatibility with WRF model output (under development)
The Integrated Data Viewer (IDV) from Unidata is a software library package and software framework for visualizing and analysing geoscience data. It uses the VisAD library for data models and creating visualization systems, and other Java-based utility packages. The IDV is a freely available software package which was created at the Unidata Program Center (UPC), part of the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research. There has been a limited effort to develop compatibility between WRF’s NetCDF output and IDV.
• IVE compatibility with WRF model output (under development)
The Interactive Visualization Environment (IVE) is a software package developed at the University of Washington to interactively display and analyze gridded data. IVE assumes the data to be displayed are contained in one, two, three, or four-dimensional arrays, and is able to generate many types of plots in one, two and three dimensions. The IVE development team is in the process of making the necessary modifications to the IVE visualization program to directly ingest WRF model output data.
Comments, suggestions, and experiences with any of these or other tools are welcome.
We currently have interactions with:
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Email comments or suggestions to stoeling@atmos.washington.edu
Last updated on 06 July, 2005