The 2014 WRFDA Overview

WRFDA - the Weather Research and Forecasting Data Assimilation system is a component of the WRF modeling system developed at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. WRFDA is an advanced data assimilation system, contained with the WRF software that provides state-of-art 3D/4D variational (3D/4D-Var) and variational/ensemble hybrid techniques (Barker et al. 2004; Huang et al. 2009; Wang et al. 2008). WRFDA is used in both applied and research settings. It is used as the analysis component of several international operational data assimilation and forecasting systems (e.g. AFWA, CWB, KMA, BMB, UAE). It is also used by universities and research institutions for data assimilation research.

WRFDA is a community data assimilation asset. NCAR maintains and develops the WRFDA website [http://www.mmm.ucar.edu/wrf/users/wrfda], where community users can browse, or download WRFDA documentation, obtain the latest code and test data, learn using WRFDA through online tutorial, and participate in user forums.

At the conference, I will give a brief overview of the current WRFDA status and progress made in the past two years and discuss the ongoing research and development.