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WPS error when run With ERA-5

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fahim.2810

New member
Hello everyone,
I’m currently trying to run WRF-ARW v4.6.0 using ERA5 reanalysis data, and I’ve run into a persistent issue that I’d appreciate any insights on.

As you know, ERA5 provides surface and upper-air (pressure level) data separately, while WRF requires both vertical and surface data together. Here’s what I did:
  • First, I linked Vtable.ERA-interim.ml and ran ungrib for the surface data.
  • Then, I switched to Vtable.ERA-interim.pl and ran ungrib again for the pressure level data.
  • In namelist.wps, I assigned different fg_name entries for the surface and pressure level data.
  • Then I ran metgrid.

At this point, I encountered an error in metgrid:

“Can’t find PFC data for level 20500”
Click to expand...

I double-checked and saw this 20500 level wasn’t specified in my namelist.wps. To troubleshoot:
  • I manually removed the unwanted levels mentioned in namelist.wps.
  • Reran ungrib for both datasets.
  • Ran metgrid again — but the same error persists.

Now, metgrid is still referring to a pressure level (20500) that isn’t listed in my namelist.wps pressure levels.

Has anyone else faced this issue with ERA5 and WRF 4.6.0?
  • Is there a proper, clean way to combine ERA5 surface and upper-air data for WRF?
  • Or perhaps a recommended Vtable or processing sequence that avoids this error?
  • Could this be an issue from index files not being cleared properly between ungrib runs?
Any advice, documentation pointers, or workflow examples would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks in advance for your help.
 
Hi fahim.2810,

I may help you because I also use ERA-5 for WRF simulation.
When I crease the initial value, I only use Vtable.ERA-interim.pl.
Also, do you separately save ungrid surface and pressure level data?
In my case, I separately save both data (PLFILE and SFFILE), and then I change "fg_name" as follows:

fg_name = '/directory_name/PLFILE', '/directory_name/SFFILE' ,

Hope this comment is helpful to you.

Masaru
 
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