The SOO/STRC Workstation Eta is nearly identical to NCEP's WS Eta and operational Eta Models. The primary difference is its easy-of-use that comes from the run-time scripts and organization of the source code and various data files. Model source code remains the same as the NCEP release except for the inclusion on the Kain-Fritsch cumulus scheme and the addition of output fields. No compiler is necessary since the SOO/STRC maintains binary distributions for linux and HPUX.

The SOO/STRC Workstation Eta package takes previous model output in GRIB format to serve as the initial and lateral boundary conditions for your model run. Most of these data sets are available in real-time from the NCEP or OOS data servers. Historical cases can be run from data available on the SOO/STRC data archive or the Reanalysis project.

The WS Eta includes an eta/sigma coordinate option, a non-hydrostatic option, and a choice of Kain-Fritsch or Betts-Miller-Janic cumulus schemes. It also has nesting capability. The code if VERY efficient, running 25-33% faster than a similarly configured version of MM5 on 1 CPU. The model is also very scalable with up to 90% performance gain going from 1 to 2 CPUs. If you are looking for a machine to run the model on I strongly encourage you to obtain a multi-CPU workstation. Lots of performance gain for the money. The model has been ported to HPUX and LINUX operating systems. I suspect it will run under any OS but you will have to make some changes to the Makefiles if you compile on a different system. Binaries are provided for HPUX and LINUX.

Running the model for either real-time forecasts or local case studies requires that you configure and run 3 different run-time scripts, eta_download.csh, eta_run.csh, and eta_convert.csh, in that order. The names are self explanatory. All the variables you need to configure are documented in these scripts. There is a 4th script that can be used for real-time forecasts that runs the 3 run-time scripts and tells you if you were successful.

A utility, etamap, has been provided for you to get a better idea as to the computational workstation ETA model domain. It is strongly recommended that you use this program to establish the areal coverage of your model runs. The program is based on the GEMPAK program, GPMAP, but takes the the parameters used to define your model domain.