The present manual aims at constituting a first approach for beginner users to the Weather
Research and Forecasting Model.
The present manual contains basic information about running the Weather Research and Forecasting Model on workstations and clusters of the Department of Meteorology and Geophysics in Vienna.
More detailed information is also available:
[Basic WRF usage, including compilation instructions](WRF/WRF_basic.md).
[Advanced WRF usage](WRF/WRF_basic.md).
[Data assimilation with WRF](WRF/WRF_da.md).
[Workflows for common WRF tasks](WRF/WRF_da.md).
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WRF and related programs run as executables on linux machines and clusters. Running WRF requires access to a linux terminal. If you work on Linux or Mac, this is trivial: just open a terminal window. If you work on windows, consider using a linux terminal emulator that supports X11 forwarding (a protocol that enables running interactive graphical applications on a remote server via ssh). There are several alternatives, one option that proved to work well is [MobaXterm](https://mobaxterm.mobatek.net/).
The WRF source code is available on [Github](https://github.com/wrf-model/WRF). It is possible to checkout the repository, but the recommended way of getting the code is to download one of the [official releases](https://github.com/wrf-model/WRF/releases): scroll down to the "Assets" section and choose one of the `v*.tar.gz` or `v*zip` files (not the "Source code" ones; these are incomplete).
## Getting WRF
### Option 1: Get the WRF executables
If someone else already compiled it on the computer you'll be working with, you just need to:
* copy their WRF run directory.
* replicate exactly their compilation and runtime environment.
### Option 2: Get the source code
The WRF source code is available on [Github](https://github.com/wrf-model/WRF), and there are several ways to get it.
* Recommended: download one of the [official releases](https://github.com/wrf-model/WRF/releases): scroll down to the "Assets" section and choose one of the `v*.tar.gz` or `v*zip` files (not the "Source code" ones; these are incomplete).
To download while working on the terminal on a remote server, use wget or curl:
* You can also import WRF from Github into a new empty Gitlab project on [Phaidra](https://gitlab.phaidra.org/explore). To get access to Gitlab, look at the [ZID guidlines](https://zid.univie.ac.at/gitlab/) and send a request via email to `support.phaidra@univie.ac.at`. Once you have access credentials, click on "New Project", then "Import Project", then "Repository by URL". This method might be advisable if you want to use Gitlab for tracking your own changes to the WRF code, but do not want to rely on the official repository.
