4. User Interface
Users access the WRF cloud system through a web browser and domain name unique to each organization. In this documentation, app.wrfcloud.com may be used as an example. This website serves as the primary user interface (UI) through which users are able to view, launch, and monitor forecasts as well as manage user accounts, depending on each user’s role and corresponding permissions (see System Administration Roles and Permissions Section 3.1.1). Users can navigate the site using the Menu options. The Menu options are described below.
4.1. Homepage
The main home pages contains brief information about the system and is an access point to Login to the system.
4.1.1. Login / Logout
To Login to the system, click on the blue Login button on the Homepage. This will take you to a prompt to enter your Email Address and Password, and then you can click the blue Login button. If your credentials are propoerly validated, you’ll be taken to the main system page. Once logged into the system, you can logout by clicking the “Logout” button.
4.1.2. Forgot / Reset password
If you forgot your password, you an click on the “I forgot my password” button on the Login page. You’ll be prompted to enter your email address. Check your email from instructions to reset your password.
4.2. Run WRF
The Run WRF tab is where you can launch a new WRF run. There are several parameters described below that need to be selected in order to setup and launch a new forecast.
Model Confiuration: Name of the model configuration. The list of available model configurations will appear in the dropdown menu. These are created using the WRF Config Menu option (see below).
Job Name: This is an optional name to give your run to help describe its purpose or meaning.
Cycle Date: The inital date of the forecast. Select from the calendar or enter manually in MM/DD/YYYY format. (Please see note below)
Cyle Hour: The initial cycle hour. Options are 00, 06, 12, 18 UTC.
Forecast Length: The forecast legnth in hours.
Output Frequency: The frequency of forecast output.
After the parameters are set, check or uncheck the “Notify when finished” box. Then click the Launch button. You will be automatically taken to the WRF Jobs status page after the system initializes the cluster.
Note
The initialization data currently used is the Global Forecasting System (GFS) at 3-hourly intervals. Currently GFS data availability is limited to roughly the last two years. In addition, users running close to real-time cycles should allow a 6-hour buffer to ensure that cycle is available on the server. Data can be retrieved from two sources: NOAA’s GFS archive on AWS’s S3, and the NOMADS server if requeseted data is within 10 days.
Remember that longer forecast length and greater the output frequency, the more the forecast will cost.
4.3. WRF Configs
A model configuration is a combination of user-defined parameters that define the computational domain, grid extents, projection, resolution, model dynamics, and model physics. These parameters are defined in the namelist.wps and namelist.input files that are used by WRF to run its forecasts.
The WRF Configs page displays a table with all of the model configurations that have been created on your system. Click on any of the model configs to view its settings. If you have not created any configurations yet, the table will be empty. Click the Add Config button at the top to create a new configuration. See Model Configuration GUI for more details.
4.3.1. Managing Model Configurations
4.3.1.1. Create new config
To create a new model configuration, click on the Add Config button on the WRF Configs tab. Type a name for the new model configuration, adjust the settings to create your new domain, then click the Save button. The new configuration will appear in the table on the WRF Configs tab. See Model Configuration GUI for more information about customizing a new model configuration.
4.3.1.2. Start from an existing config (Duplicate and modify)
You can copy an existing configuration and modify it as desired. Click on the existing configuration in the table on the WRF Configs tab to open the Edit WRF Configuration window. Click the Duplicate button at the bottom of the window. The title of the window should change to Create WRF Configuration and the Name value will change to the original configuration name with “_copy” added to the end. Edit the settings described in the Model Configuration GUI section. Be sure to change the Name and Description values. Click Save when finished and the new configuration will appear in the table on the WRF Configs tab.
4.3.1.3. Update existing config
To update an existing model configuration, click on the configuration name in the table on the WRF Configs tab to open the Edit WRF Configuration window. Edit the settings described in the Model Configuration GUI section. Click the Update button to save changes or click Cancel to discard changes.
4.3.1.4. Remove config
To permanently remove an existing model configuration, click on the configuration name in the table on the WRF Configs tab, then click the orange Remove button to delete it.
4.3.2. Model Configuration GUI
Model configurations and their corresponding namelist files can be easily created and modified using the model configuration GUI. See Managing Model Configurations for information on how to access the GUI. The model config GUI provides a simple interface to define new domains and configurations. The sections of the GUI include:
4.3.2.1. Name
Name of the model configuration. This should ideally be a shorter character string, but it is helpful to provide a meaningful name to describe the model configuration details. For example, 6km_caribbean_trop may be a name given to describe a configuration of the Caribbean Sea with 6km grid spacing that uses the tropical physics suite.
4.3.2.2. Description
(Optional) Add a description to provide more information about the model configuration. For a configuration named 6km_caribbean_trop, the description could be 6km Caribbean Domain with standard tropical physics suite.
Users have the option to use the Basic editing mode (shown by default) or an Advanced editing mode. The Basic editing mode allows the user to create the configuration in the GUI without having to edit namelists directly.
4.3.2.3. Basic
The Basic mode information includes:
Projection: Choose a projection from the dropdown menu. Options are Lambert or Mercator.
Domain Definition: Use the map tool to draw a box of your regional domain. From a desktop computer, hold the CTRL button and drag to draw a new box. The latitude and longitude corners on the right side will automatically adjust based on your box on the map. You may also edit the North, West, South, and East latitude/longitude boxes directly. Changes will be reflected in the box on the map. Note that drawing the domain box on the map tool is currently only available from a desktop. For mobile platforms, users must enter the latitude/longitude corners direcly and will see the domain box rendered on the map.
Grid Resolution: Enter the model resolution in meters.
Physics Suite: Select the physics suite option. Options include tropical, conv-permitting, or custom. The custom setting simply means you will edit the physics settings directly in the namelist.input file using the Advanced editing mode. The tropical and convection-permitting options reflect what the WRF modeling team provides as a good place to start, which include settings for two typical applications: convection-permitting weather over the contiguous U.S. and tropical storms/convection. More information can be found here, but the settings are shown below for quick reference and use in defining a new model configuration.
Microphysics |
Thompson |
mp_physics= 8 |
Cumulus |
Tiedtke |
cu_physics= 6 |
Longwave radiation |
RRTMG |
ra_lw_physics= 4 |
Shortwave radiation |
RRTMG |
ra_sw_physics= 4 |
Boundary layer |
MYJ |
bl_pbl_physics= 2 |
Surface layer |
MYJ |
sf_sfclay_physics= 2 |
Land surface |
Noah LSM |
sf_surface_physics= 2 |
Microphysics |
WSM6 |
mp_physics= 6 |
Cumulus |
new Tiedtke |
cu_physics= 16 |
Longwave radiation |
RRTMG |
ra_lw_physics= 4 |
Shortwave radiation |
RRTMG |
ra_sw_physics= 4 |
Boundary layer |
YSU |
bl_pbl_physics= 1 |
Surface layer |
MM5 |
sf_sfclay_physics= 91 |
Land surface |
Noah LSM |
sf_surface_physics= 2 |
Core count: Number of cores used to run WRF. The Set automatically box is checked by default, which means the system will determine a good estimate of the number of cores to use based on the grid defined in the model configuration. This box can be unchecked to manually select the number of cores. This may come in handy if a job fails due to over-decomposition and the number of cores should be reduced.
4.3.2.4. Advanced
Advanced users may find it helpful to use the Advanced editing mode. This tab shows the contents of the namelist.wps and namelist.input files in a window that can be edited directly. Any edits made to the contents will also be reflected in the Basic editing tab and vice versa. For example, one may use the Basic editing mode to create a domain, then switch to the Advanced editing mode to update the physics. The Advanced editing mode allows users to upload existing namelist files directly.
4.3.3. Limitations & Considerations of Model Configuration Options
The system currently only supports single domains: max_dom must be 1.
Initialization data is limited to GFS at 3-hour intervals. The available date range spans roughly the last 2 years.
Regional WRF resolutions may range from about 1km to 12km.
There are many options in WRF. Choosing new configurations requires some knowledge of WRF to be successful. Additional information about these settings can be found in the WRF Users Guide.
4.4. WRF Jobs
A table of jobs that have been launched can be found in the WRF Jobs tab. The table provides the following information:
Job ID: Unique job ID for the forecast. This is automatically generated by the system and used for advanced debugging.
Name: If a Job Name was provided in the previous step when Launching a new forecast, it will appear in this column. (Note: this is optional)
Configuration: Name of model configuration used for the forecast.
Cycle Time: The initialization date and time of the forecast.
Forecast Length: The total forecast length in hours.
Status: The current status and progress of the forecast. The initial status will say “Launching Cluster” as the system prepares its compute nodes and sets up the forecast. From there, the status will change indicating it’s progress through the job, e.g. “Running Ungrib”, “Running Metgrid”, etc. A completed job will display an Open Viewer button that users can click to take them to the forecast viewer for that job. A failed job will display a status message indicating which component has failed, e.g. “Real failed.” Errors can be investigated using the the Log Viewer.
4.4.1. Managing a WRF Job
Each row of the table can be clicked to open a window with additional job information and buttons to manage the job.
Cancel Job
An orange Cancel Job button will be displayed while a job is running. Click on this button to stop the job. The job status will change to Canceled. Note that cancelling a job does not delete the job from the system.
Delete Job
An orange Delete Job button will be displayed for completed or failed jobs. Click on this button to completely remove all data for the job, including plots on the forecast viewer, from the system.
Viewer
A blue Viewer button will be displayed for a successful job. Click on this button to open the forecast viewer for the job.
Logs
A blue Logs button will be displayed for a successful, failed, or cancelled job. Click on this button to open the Log Viewer window to inspect log files from the system.
4.4.2. Log Viewer
The Log Viewer allows users to view log files for a given job. A list of log files is displayed on the left hand side.
The first file (wrfcloud-run-W########.log) is the system log file that contains logging messages for each step. This provides a good overview of the progress and steps the system takes from start to finish.
Next, each component of WPS (geogrid, ungrib, metgrid) and WRF (real, wrf) has an expandable menu that lists the component’s log files. These log files can be inspected when a job fails to better understand where the problem occurred and how to fix it. Knowledge of WRF is helpful in understanding the contents of these files.
4.5. Manage Users (Admins only)
For users with Admin privileges, the users of the system can be managed in this menu option. Click on any user name to change their role and permissions or remove from system access. To add new users, click on the “Add user” button and enter their email, Name, and select a role for permissions. (see System Administration Roles and Permissions Section 3.1.1)
4.6. Preferences
Users may manage their own preferences in this tab. Currently the only option is to change your password.
4.7. Forecast Viewer
The forecast plots can be accessed by clicking on the Job ID or Status of a run in the WRF Jobs tab. See Graphics page for more information.