Hi All-
A last minute bug was introduced in IDV 2.7 that shows up when trying to
read WRF ARW netCDF files. Unfortunately, this was not caught by our
tests before the release. Also, unfortunately, this comes on the heels
of us giving an IDV tutorial at the WRF User's Workshop. If you are
not using the IDV to view WRF output, you can ignore this message.
The symptom is that IDV 2.7 will indicate that it can't find any grids
in the WRF output files. Versions up to 2.7beta 3 did not have this
problem. This is only with the raw netCDF output, not the post
processed files.
For now, we have a fix in the form of a plugin that will allow this to
work again. To apply the fix:
- Start the IDV
- Open the Plugin Manager (Tools->Plugin Manager menu)
- Expand the Bug Fixes category. Install the "WRF ARW fix for IDV 2.7"
plugin by clicking the + icon.
- Close the Plugin Manager and restart the IDV
- Try loading in your WRF data again.
Caveats on the plugin:
- it will look for files named wrfout_d01_.* in the I'm Feeling Lucky
mode of the data choosers.
- if your files are named something different, set the Data Source Type
to be "WRF ARW netCDF files"
The current nightly build has the fix in it. If you use that, you do
not need the plugin.
For those of you who use the IDV to view WRF output, note that we
recommend you use one of the postprocessing tools to convert to another
format that the IDV supports (GRIB, GEMPAK, Vis5D). These tools
destagger the grids and create the standard meteorological variables.
See the FAQ item at:
http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/software/idv/docs/userguide/Faq.html#wrf
The postprocessed files also don't have the problem described above.
If you have any questions, please send them to support-idv@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.
The IDV Developers
