WRF EMS Update : STRCWRF_U02010202d
Release Date   : 30 November 2006

Release Information:

  MAJOR BUG FIXES

    Depends upon what you call "major" but all binaries should run on PIII
    and AMD Athlon systems without an "illegal instruction set" error.

  MINOR BUG FIXES

    WRF_PREP.PL

    1. Fixed problem with "hot start" initialization of WRF NMM runs with 
       LAPS files. Now both the ARW and NMM cores utilize the various 3D
       moisture fields output from LAPS to improve the spin-up of 
       precipitation.
       
    2. Fixed (again) bug when requesting a personal tile via http servers
       that was causing failure.


    WRF_RUN.PL

    1. Fixed problem with selecting a timestep for the PBL scheme.


    WRF_POST.PL

    1. Fixed problem with navigation information of polar stereographic
       projection in grib files causing the domain to be distorted.

    2. Fixed error in GDS (Grid Definition Section) of GRIB files for 
       in ARW core nested domains.
  
     
  WRF EMS ENHANCEMENTS

    WRF_PREP.PL

    1. More better dynamic adjectives!

    2. Updated command line user's guide and help menu to the point of being
       semi-useful and quasi-articulate. Now, rather than specifying
       "wrf_prep --guide" on the command line and  being confronted with pages
       of information, the user passes the name of an option as an argument to
       --guide, e.g.  "wrf_prep --guide <option>". For Example:
 
          % wrf_prep --guide --ftp
 
       Which will give you everything that I want you to know about the --ftp
       option.
 
       The list of available options can found with "wrf_prep --help".

    3. The "--[l|s]nfs" options have been overhauled so that they better compliment
       the --[l|s]ftp and --[l|s]http options. Gone from the <data set>_gribinfo.conf
       files are the NFSDIR and SCPHOST parameters, which have been replaced by the 
       deceptively powerful SERVER-NFS option. Please read the "SERVER-METHOD" section
       of the gribinfo.conf files and see the "--[l|s]nfs" option in the user's guide.

    4. The --scp, --lscp, and --sscp options have been removed from wrf_prep.pl. 
       See "--[l|s]nfs" above for more details.

    5. The wrf_prep.pl routine will now handle the downloading and unpacking of
       compressed data sets.  Currently gzip (.gz), bzip (.bz), and bzip2 (.bz2)
       are supported although other methods can be easily added.  Users simply
       include the suffix (.gz, .bz, or .bz2) to the remote file naming convention
       specified in the <data set>_gribinfo.conf file or on the command line.
       The wrf_prep.pl script will figure everything else out.
 
    6. Improved the method of calculating the corner points for defining the areal
       coverage of the "personal tile" domain. Lots of math involved.
 
    7. Added additional support for grib 2 formatted data sets. Not everything works
       just yet. 

    8. Updated and improved Appendix B (wrf_prep.pl examples) of the user's guide.
       Please see web site or wrf_usersguide_apdxB.pdf located in the docs/userguide
       directory. 

    9. All the wrf/data/cong/gribinfo/<data set>_gribinfo.cong files have been updated.
       If you have made changes to these files previously you will have to edit the
       files again as necessary.
        
   10. Updated Appendix A (<data set>_gribinfo.conf guide)

   11. Updated wrf/data/conf/tables/wrf_cntrl.parm.template

   12. The following configuration files have been updated:

        * wrf_autonest_sample.conf
        * wrf_autorun.conf
        * post_bufr.conf
        * post_gempak.conf
        * post_grib.conf
        * wrf_post.conf
        * nmm_run_physics.conf
        * wrf_run.conf
 
   13. Improved information output to user.
 
   14. Lucky number range increased to 87.

   
    WRF_RUN.PL

       None needed cause it's perfect.


    WRF_POST.PL

    1. Added GRIB 2 support for final output format. - Yippie!
       Added the --grib1 and --grib2 options that override the VERSION setting
       in post_grib.conf.

    2. Chapter 14 of the user guide (WRF 2 AWIPS) has been updated. See the pdf
       document in wrf/docs/userguide directory.

    3. Added the ability to select the individual domains to be shipped to other 
       systems.

    4. Allow the user to send GRIB files to AWIPS individually as soon as they
       are created.

    5. Added dcgrib and nagrib to dcgrib2 as options in the creation of GEMPAK
       files. See post_gempak.conf for more details.

    6. Added the ability to create gif images from GEMPAK for each nested domain
       with the ARW core runs.

    7. Added a GEMPAK script for the creation if gif images with streamlines. Fixed
       a few problems in other scripts.

    8. Added grads scripts for the creation of composite reflectivity, total precip,
       and precipitation type.

    9. Added binary (util/bin/cnvgrib) that will allow users to convert between
       grib 1 <-> 2. Also see #1.

    WRF_AUTORUN.PL

    1. Cleaned up documentation in wrf_autorun.conf

    2. wrf_autorun.conf now uses a carat (^) to separate the method from the source 
       in METHODS, LSMMETHOD, and SFCMETHOD. See wrf_autorun.conf for the gory details.


   OTHER STUFF

   1. All the <data set>_gribinfo.conf files have been updated.

   2. Recompiled most binaries with current version of PGI compiler (6.2-4).
      Updated distributed memory binaries were compiled with RSL_LITE libraries.
      Previous releases were compiled with RSL libs. Users should see a slight
      improvement (~4%) with the distributed memory runs.

   3. Moved narr_sfc.grb to data/conf/data


   COMMENTS

   Thanks to all who made suggestions and to those who presented their 
   complaints in the form of an "issue that needed resolving asap".

   There are about 4 items on my "To Do" list including adding support for
   the new WRF initialization package as soon as NCEP embraces it and adds
   support to the NMM core. I don't anticipate this to happen until early
   next year. Turn around time is about two months.

   By early January I will have an STRC data server similar to NOMADS in that it
   will allow users to send requests via http (from wrf_prep.pl) for personal
   tiles of the NAM 12km 218 grid, the 0.5 degree GFS data, and the high res-
   olution (1/12 degree) SST data sets.  The retrieved data sets will retain
   the full resolution of the original but will contain data only over the
   user's computational domain and all unnecessary fields will be eliminated.
   Furthermore, all files will be compressed (bzip2) thus decreasing the 
   needed bandwidth to download the files by as much as 98% for the GFS data
   set. My initial testing with GFS data over conus domain reduced the downloaded
   file size from 33Mb (each period) to ~600Kb. Time to download initial and
   boundary condition files for model run also decreased by ~98%.

   Also, a comprehensive verification package will be made available by
   NCEP/DTC in 2007. I plan on integrating the package into the WRF EMS 
   as soon as it's made available but I anticipate six to eight weeks
   of work to make it "user friendly".

   I have updates for the wrfpost and wrfbufr code that I will include in 
   next WRF EMS update sometime in February/March 2007.

   That's all for now.