Weather Research and Forecasting Model
The Weather Research and Forecasting Model ( WRF ) is a computer program that serves as a resource for both Use the weather forecast as well as in research for climate modeling. It is the latest numerical computer model that is used by both the National Weather Service and the U.S. military and private meteorological organizations worldwide.
Versions
The WRF is a modular mesoscale model. There are two different versions of the model core:
- For research purposes, the Advanced Research WRF ( ARW) of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR )
- The non- hydrostatic Mesoscale Model (NMM ) of the National Centers for Environmental Prediction ( NCEP ) for the operational service
The NMM is based on the Eta model Zavisa Janjić and Fedor Messinger while ARW is an evolution of the MM5 model.
There are also
- A special version for hurricane research and prediction ( Hurricane Weather Research and Forecasting, HWRF )
- As well as regionally -adapted models
The Swiss company Meteoblue works as a NMM model, which has an extremely high grid resolution of 2x2 km. Soaringmeteo works with an ARW model with the same resolution.
Since version 3, the model is also able to provide global simulations.
System Requirements and Installation
After registration on the WRF website, the program is freely available. For interested laymen and sometimes even thematically Savvy, the installation nevertheless a tremendous hurdle, although the currently available power of personal computers would allow the private use entirely. Before use, however, must WRF itself and some libraries ( netCDF ) are compiled. The operating system is Linux or specifically designed for mainframe operating systems such as AIX, Darwin, UNICOS are required.
Easy installation with WRF Environmental Modeling System ( EMS)
A simplified installation with prebuilt packages (PGI compiler) provides the WRF EMS, provided by the Science and Training Resource Center ( STRC ) of the National Weather Service (NWS ) of the Science Operations Officer ( SOO ). The program package only works on computers with x86 processors from AMD or Intel with the freely available Linux operating system (32 and 64 bit).
Another significant advantage of the package is that important additional programs are already integrated with graphical user interface for data preparation and review and visualization programs. Integrated as a global data set of the surface itself The data is resolutions of 10, 5, 2, and 0.5 arc seconds.