Table of Contents

Getting Started with GIS4WRF

In GIS4WRF, features are grouped in a single container -- referred to as dock -- and a menu. The dock is further subdivided into tabs and sub-tabs, each containing one or more features. Before you begin using GIS4WRF, there are a few options that you may want to check out. All GIS4WRF configuration options can be found under QGIS > Settings > Options... > GIS4WRF as shown in the figure below.

Configuration Window

Setting the Working Directory

The GIS4WRF working directory is used for storing Projects, downloaded datasets, and pre-compiled WRF/WPS distributions. The default working directory varies depending on your operating system. The table below shows the default working directory setting for Windows, macOS, and Linux.

Operating System GIS4WRF Default Working Directory
Windows C:\Users\<USER>\Documents\gis4wrf
macOS /Users/<USER>/Documents/gis4wrf
Linux /home/<USER>/gis4wrf

Make sure that you have enough space and the correct permissions set for the GIS4WRF default working directory. The GIS4WRF working directory can be set to a different location.

WPS/WRF Distributions

If you are looking to use GIS4WRF to run WPS and WRF programs you need to set the path to the WPS and WRF folder on your system. Alternatively, we currently support download of pre-compiled WPS and WRF distributions for Windows only configured for real cases (serial + basic domain) only.

NCAR's Research Data Archive Integration

You can set your username and password to access the NCAR's Research Data Archive through the GIS4WRF Met data downloader. If you do not have an account, you can register for one here.

Tabs

The location and description of each tab and sub-tabs can be found in the table below.

GIS4WRF Dock Description
Home Contains documents and tutorials
Datasets > Geo Download WPS geographical datasets
Datasets > Met Download meteorological datasets from NCAR's RDA
Datasets > Process Convert raster data (e.g. GeoTIFF) into WPSgeographical datasets
Simulation > General Create or open GIS4WRF projects
Simulation > Domain Create, import and export domains
Simulation > Data Define geographical and meteorological datasets to use in simulation
Simulation > Run Pre-populate, check and export namelists and run WPS and WRF programs
View Visualize and post-process WPS and WRF input or outputs

For a detailed description of each component, please refer to the following pages:

The location and description of each menu item can be found in the table below.

QGIS Menu Description
Plugins > GIS4WRF > GIS4WRF Launch GIS4WRF Dock
Plugins > GIS4WRF > About Contains changelog and third-party-license information
Plugins > GIS4WRF > Report a bug Links to GIS4WRF's issue system on GitHub
Layers > Add Layer > Add WRF NetCDF Layer... Loads a WRF-NetCDF dataset into QGIS
Layers > Add Layer > Add WPS Binary Layer... Loads a WPS Binary dataset into QGIS