View source for WRF FAQ

Frequently Asked Question for the WRF Hindcast Project

==How can  I look/read the WRF run output files?==
The output files are in NetCDF format and can be viewed graphically with the ncview program. The ncinfo program gives meta data in text output. Many language API's are available which can read the NetCDF4 format, such as Python netCDF4 and the gdal class from osgeo package.

==Why do WRF runs default to yesterday?==
Our WRF runs use reanalyzed forcing files from the Global Forecast System model. Reanalyzed means that the forcing files use available sensed data (satellite, balloons,etc.) from the past and not the predicted values used in forecasting. So, the runs must wait for a day for the reanalyzed files to be made available.

It is possible to run the WRF/SME in forecast mode and it would be useful for predictive purposes, but would be less reliable than the hindcast mode.

== Why do the GFS input files go from 06:00 to 06:00 the next day for the WCONUS sectors? ==
The Global Forecast System forcing files carry a UTC time stamp. Sectors that are exactly 6 hours from UTC will have a 12:00am to 12:am daily period, sectors that are 5 hours from will have a 01:00am to 01:00am period and sectors that are 7 hours away will have a 11:00pm to 11:00pm period. All times are standard with no adjustments for Daylight Savings. Attempts to specify hour starts have failed in WRFV3, and have not been tried yet in WRFV4.