WRF Domain Wizard is the successor to the WRFSI GUI and is a graphical user interface (GUI) for the new WRF Preprocessing System (WPS). It enables users to easily define and localize domains (cases) by selecting a region of the Earth and choosing a map projection. Users can also define nests using the nests editor, edit namelist.input, run the WPS programs (geogrid, ungrib, and metgrid) through the GUI, and visualize the NetCDF output. WRF Domain Wizard is also a built-in component of WRF Portal. WRF Domain Wizard stores its information in the standard WPS file, namelist.wps.

WRF Domain Wizard can be run as a stand-alone application or it can be run from inside the WRF Portal application. There are two ways to launch the standalone version of WRF Domain Wizard: by downloading the application and unzipping it, or by launching it with Java Web Start. The advantages of running the Java Web Start version include being able to run it without doing an installation, and automatically receiving program updates. Having trouble running Domain Wizard? Please read the FAQ or troubleshooting tips. Get the source code here.

What's New in version 1.22 - support for WRF 3 namelist.input, WPS 3 "lat-lon" regional and global domains, and visualizing NetCDF files in IDV and Google Earth.

Click here to launch WRF Domain Wizard version 1.22
Requires Java 5 or later (go here if you can only run Java 1.4).

Help! WRF Domain Wizard doesn't launch! Here are some trouble-shooting tips.

Note: Since WRF Portal includes WRF Domain Wizard, we recommend just downloading/running WRF Portal in order to have access to both programs.

Requirements to run WRF Domain Wizard

Minimum: Java 1.5
Recommended: Java 1.6 (Java 6) for much better performance
390 MB of RAM (memory) available
1024 x 768 (or better) video display

Known Issues

1. None at this time

Release History

1. Last Beta, September 11, 2007 (split application download into multiple files so future update downloads will be much faster)
2. Version 1.00 released on September 21, 2007
3. Version 1.01 released on October 17, 2007 (fixes bug where Vertical Levels Editor didn't update the num_metgrid_levels variable, includes new version of Panoply version 2.4 which support stereographic projections over the poles)
4. Version 1.02 released on November 5, 2007 (fixes the Mac compatibility issue with regards to the file chooser dialog. Also improved the file chooser for Linux.)
5. Version 1.10 released on April 17, 2008 (adds the namelist.input editor, various minor bug fixes)
6. Version 1.20 released on May 22, 2008 included support for WRF 3 namelist.input, WPS 3 "lat-lon" regional and global domains
7. Version 1.21 released on May 24, 2008 included minor bug fixes to 1.20
8. Version 1.22 released on May 29, 2008 included support for visualizing NetCDF files in IDV and Google Earth.

WRF Domain Wizard Help
DomainWizard.Help.gsd@noaa.gov

Troubleshooting Tips

If WRF Domain Wizard won't start after you click the "launch" link above, you probably don't have Java installed on your computer. The software requires Java 1.5 or later to be installed on your desktop computer in order to run. Java 6 (or 1.6) is highly recommended for performance reasons. You can download the free Java Runtime Environment (JRE) here. Just download the JRE, install it, and then click the "launch" link (above) again.

If Java is installed on your desktop computer and yet the "launch" link still doesn't work, then Java Web Start isn't configured correctly on your computer's web browser. Here are instructions on how setup *.jnlp association for Java Web Start in various web browsers.

Don't have WPS installed yet? Don't know how to install it? Look at these instructions.

WRF Domain Wizard requires 390MB of RAM to run. To run the program use the run_DomainWizard batch file or script which contains this line of code:
java -Xmx390m -jar WRFDomainWizard.jar

If you are running Mac OS-X (version 10.3.1 or later), Java Web Start is already installed. Most versions of Linux also have Java installed (although Web Start might not be configured correctly). For more information on configuring/installing Java Web Start, go here.

If you are unable to get Java Web Start to work on your computer, do not despair! You can always download the application, unzip, and run it.

If you get an error message like "geogrid.log is not found" then you are probably trying to run a parallel version of geogrid. Parallel compiled code should be submitted through job queuing software which is not yet possible to do through Domain Wizard. Either
run the WPS executables outside of Domain Wizard (in a job queuing system), or recompile WPS in serial mode and then use Domain Wizard. The compilation option for compiling WPS is independent of the compilation option used for WRF. So, you could compile WRF parallel and WPS serial. 

To understand if the gridgen.exe executable is working correctly, you can run gridgen.exe from the command line after you 'cd' into the domain directory containing your namelist.wps. Helpful information, on the success or failure of running gridgen.exe, should be written at the command line prompt.

WRF Domain Wizard stores configuration information (but no passwords) in a file called DomainWizard.cfg in your home directory. On Linux systems, your home directory is usually in a directory called /home/jsmith or /usr/home/jsmith (assuming your user name is jsmith). On Windows XP systems, your home directory would be something like C:\Documents and Settings\jsmith (assuming your username is jsmith). If this file becomes corrupted, you can just delete it and the software will re-generate it.

Technical Information About Running the WPS Programs
(from the Run Preprocessors screen)

Grib Vtable Name
Choose a standard WPS VTable from the list of files found in the WPS program source directory (..WPS/ungrib/Variable_Tables).

A Vtable is a variable table used by ungrib.exe to decode and extract variables from GRIB files. When ungrib.exe runs, it extracts the atmospheric parameters used to initialize WRF.

Grib Files Dir
Choose the directory containing the GRIB files necessary to initialize WRF. If GRIB data (source for the initial and lateral boundary background files) is not available on your system, you'll likely have to acquire it from NCEP.

Grib Files
Click the "Select Files" button to list and choose the time specific GRIB files necessary to initialize WRF. GRIB files tend to have unique names that correspond to the date of the file.

For example, an ESRL file named "0700912000018" signifies a date of 2007, Julian day 009 (the ninth day into the year), 12Z (UTC) model run, for the 18 hour forecast.

Files from NCEP tend to have file name patterns like:
^nam.t??z.awp211(00|06|12|18|24|30|36|42|48...)$.tm00
For example, an NCEP file named "nam.t12z.awp21148.tm00.grib2" signifies NAM model output data for a 12Z (UTC) run, for CONUS 211, 48 hour forecast, grib2 format.

Grib Start and End Date
Choose the start and end date/times that correspond to the GRIB files selected in the list above.

The GRIB start date needs to correspond to the initial grib file (date) to be processed.

The GRIB end date needs to correspond to the last grib file (date) to be processed.

Example 1, if your GRIB files are
0701006000000
0701006000006
0701006000012
Then your start date and time should be
2007-01-10 06:00:00
And your end date and time should be
2007-01-10 18:00:00

The GRIB end date/time will depend on the length of the forecast (determined by the your GRIB file list).

Example 2, if your GRIB files are
0701012000000
0701012000006
0701012000012
Then your start date and time should be
2007-01-10 12:00:00 (noon)
And your end date and time should be
2007-01-11 00:00:00 (midnight)
Note that the day is the 11th since we add 12 hours to the start time of noon.

Grib Interval
Choose an interval time corresponding to the GRIB file forecast interval time (typically 3 or 6 hours).

If you choose 3 hours and the model output is every 6 hours, Ungrib will generate twice as many files as might be needed. The additional files are time interpolated.

Geogrid Button
Press this button to run geogrid.exe in order to localize this domain and create a NetCDF (.nc) output file. Geogrid.exe extracts the portion of the global geographical data sets (e.g. soil moisture, vegetation, albedo, etc.) and maps it to the domain projection (defined in the namelist.wps file that WRF Domain Wizard generates).

If your domain contains nests, then geogrid will generate an .nc file for each nest (plus the .nc file for the domain).

Ungrib Button
Press this button to decode and extract atmospheric parameters from GRIB files in order to initialize WRF. When Ungrib.exe runs, it initially extracts data into PFILES and then re-processes it into FILE data, interpolating for any missing data.

The temporary files it generates have filenames like "PFILE:2007-01-10_12". These files are automatically deleted upon successful completion of running ungrib.exe.

The final output files are binary and have names like "FILE:2007-01-10_12".

Metgrid Button
Press this button to run metgrid.exe (after you have successfully run both geogrid.exe and ungrib.exe).

Metgrid takes the meteoroligical data extracted through running ungrib and maps it to this domain using the NetCDF output from geogrid. Its output is a series of NetCDF files that are used to initialize WRF.

These files have names like "met_em.d01.2007-01-10_18:00:00.nc".

Output Buttons
Press these buttons to see a list of output files generated by the corresponding program.

Log Buttons
Press these buttons to re-display the program output (or program log).

Terminate Button
Press this button to halt one of the currently running WPS programs (either geogrid, ungrib, or metgrid).

Delete Temp Files Button
Cleans up the domains (output) directory, deleting all temporary files.

Where Can I Find GRIB Data?

Free Grib Datasets from NCAR/DSS

Here is a master list of NCEP GRIB 1 GRIDS
http://www.nco.ncep.noaa.gov/pmb/docs/on388/tableb.html

Here is the website for the realtime data sets
ftp://ftpprd.ncep.noaa.gov/pub/data/nccf/com/

where, for example NGM data is
ftp://ftpprd.ncep.noaa.gov/pub/data/nccf/com/ngm/prod/
Files that you can fetch have patterns like:
  ^ngm.t??z.pgrb.f(00|06|12|18|24|30|36|42|48)$