Resources Online

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Overview and online Courses about NWP:

• ECMWF , Lectures in NWP.
  
• COMET/MetEd .  (registration is required, but free)
  

1. Scientific basis for numerical weather prediction (NWP).

• Lewis Fry Richardson , 
• Richardson's Forecast Factory , 
• ENIAC computer ,  (also see very interesting book by Walter Isaacson, 2014: "The Innovators", ISBN 9781476708690.)
  
• Moore's Law ,
  

• MWR 1992 paper by Laprise on eqs of motion, as used in WRF .
• MWR 1974 paper by Kasahara on coordinate transformations, as used by Laprise.
  
• Technical Description pdf of WRF v3 (Skamarock et al 2008, 2012) discusses eqs and numerics.
  

3. Running the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model

• WRF Tech Notes and Users Guides for ARW and NMM versions.
  
• ARW 4 Tech Note 2019 pdf download .
  
• ARWv3 user guide July 2041 pdf download (old version).
  
• WRF ARW online tutorial for installing, compiling, and running WRF.    Program flow.
  
• WRF v3.6 model users guide .
  
• Plans for future updates to WRF .
  
• WRF downloads page .
  
• WRF Namelist variables-
• Version 3 .
• Version 4 .
  
• Intro to IDV data viewer .
  
• Code to run in NCL to destagger WRF output before viewing in IDV .
  

4. Horizontal coordinate transformations & map projections

5. Spectral methods.

• ECMWF Numerical Methods online course, Chapter 6. (link broken)
• Horizontal resolutions in early 2015:  GFS or GFS , ECMWF  or ECMWF .
  

Weeks 3: Numerical solutions to the equations.

• MWR 2007 paper by Klemp et al on split-explicit time stepping, as used in WRF .
  

Weeks 4-5:  Errors and effects of numerical approximations. 
      Zipped files of 1-D Advection movies by Pedro Odon, using different finite-difference methods,
      and showing results for different Courant (Cr) numbers:

• Forward Time, Centered Space ,
• Forward Time, Backward Space ,
• Centered Time, Centered Space ,
• Centered Time, Centered Space -Asselin ,
• Runge-Kutta 3rd order Time, Centered Space,
• Spectral

Week 7: Overview of physical-process parameterizations.

• WRF physics options .
  
• ECMWF physics .
  

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Week 8:  Model initialization and data assimilation. 

• ECMWF Lectures on Assimilation Algorithms by Mike Fisher (2010)
  
• Lecture 1 - Basic Concepts (pdf)
  
• Lecture 2 - 3DVar (pdf)
• Lecture 3 - 4DVar (pdf)
• Lecture 4 - Kalman Filtering (pdf)
• link to other ECMWF lectures on NWP topics . (link broken)
• .
  

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Week 9:  Ensemble methods.

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Week 10:  Verification.

• Comparision of verification statistics from different modeling centers:  USA ,  Canada ,
  

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Week 11:  The numerical forecast process and statistical postprocessing.

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Week 12:  Operational NWP models.

• Table of Operational NWP Models (COMET)
  
• Table of Ensemble NWP Models (COMET)
  
• GFS model info .
• ECMWF IFS model info . (link broken)

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WestGrid computer info (old)

• Apply for an Account  with Compute Canada.
  
• WestGrid QuickStart Guide , where WestGrid is one of the computing centers within Compute Canada.
  
• QuickStart Guide to Orcinus , where Orcinus is the name of a WestGrid computer at UBC. 
  

• Tips from our TA Jesse Mason for installing and running WRF on WestGrid:  
• New 2015 tips: On installing WRF:  Tip1 , Tip2 (& bash example for Tip2),
  
• New 2015 tips: On running WRF for the Jan2000 case study supplied by NCAR:  Tip3 ,
  
• New 2015 tips: Code to de-stagger the raw WRF output for use as input into the IDV viewer to create weather maps:  Tip4 , 
• New 2015 tips from Classmates:  Tip 4 from Maggie on creating equal-length "surface" wind vectors (using 925 hPa winds). 
  
• New 2015 tips from TA Jesse Mason for the last WRF assignment, for creating your own domains, and running for your own dates.
  
• New 2015 tips from David Siuta for using IDV to create meteograms (point forecasts). 
  

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Graphical Postprocessing Packages for WRF

• UPP .
  
• Vapor .
  
• IDV .
  

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[Old tips from 2013 (do not use) : Tip1 , Tip2 , Tip3 , Tip4 on GrADS , Tip5 on graphics.pl  , Some simple graphics scripts (please download this graphics.tar.gz file into your ~/WRF directory on WestGrid) that creates weather maps using GrADS software so you can view your WRF output. ]