WRF-Python Tutorial 2018

NCAR will be providing a four hour tutorial for wrf-python on Wednesday, March 7, 2018 from 8 AM to 12 PM. The tutorial is free, but seating is limited to only 16 students, so registration is required.

The tutorial will take place at NCAR’s corporate training center in Boulder, Colorado.

Corporate Technical Training Center 3085 Center Green Drive, Building CG-2, Room #3024 Boulder, Colorado

Overview

WRF-Python is a collection of diagnostic and interpolation routines for use with output from the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF-ARW) Model. The package provides over 30 diagnostic calculations, several interpolation routines, and utilities to help with plotting via cartopy, basemap, or PyNGL. The functionality is similar to what is provided by the NCL WRF package.

Note

WRF-Python is NOT a tool for running the WRF-ARW model using Python.

This tutorial provides an introduction to wrf-python. The tutorial is beginner friendly for new users of wrf-python, but this is NOT an introduction to the Python programming language (see Prerequisites). Due to limited seating, if you do not have any previous experience with Python, please do not register for this tutorial.

Note

For online training that provides an introduction to the Python programming language itself, please see the Unidata Python Training Page.

Computers will be provided, but feel free to use your own laptop if you prefer. We will be covering how to install wrf-python via conda as part of the tutorial.

Students are encouraged to bring their own data sets, but data will be provided if this is not an option. Students will be provided a jupyter notebook workbook which can be modified to accommodate their data.

Topics include:

  • How to install wrf-python via conda
  • A brief introduction to jupyter notebook
  • Overview of WRF data files
  • WRF-Python basics
  • Plotting with cartopy
  • Overview of OpenMP features and other performance tips
  • Open lab for students

Registration

Please register prior to February 21, 2018. The registration form is here:

Registration Form

Registration consists of a brief survey, which will help give the instructor a brief overview of your background and will help tailor the tutorial to your expectations.

Prerequisites

This tutorial assumes that you have basic knowledge of how to type commands in to a terminal window using your preferred operating system. You should know some basic directory commands like cd, mkdir, cp, mv.

This tutorial assumes that you have prior experience programming in Python. Below is a list of some Python concepts that you will see in the examples, but don’t worry if you aren’t familiar with everything.

  • Opening a Python interpreter and entering commands.
  • Importing packages via the import statement.
  • Familiarity with some of the basic Python types: str, list, tuple, dict, bool, float, int, None.
  • Creating a list, tuple, or dict with “[ ]”, “( )”, “{ }” syntax (e.g. my_list = [1,2,3,4,5]).
  • Accessing dict/list/tuple items with the “x[ ]” syntax (e.g. my_list_item = my_list[0]).
  • Slicing str/list/tuple with the “:” syntax (e.g. my_slice = my_list[1:3]).
  • Using object methods and attributes with the “x.y” syntax (e.g. my_list.append(6)).
  • Calling functions (e.g. result = some_function(x, y))
  • Familiarity with numpy would be helpful, as only a very brief introduction is provided.
  • Familiarity with matplotlib would be helpful, as only a very brief introduction is provided.