palm-install

A Claude Code Skill for complete PALM model system + WRF4PALM + palmpy installation from source.

Battle-tested on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS with gcc 13.3.0 and OpenMPI 4.1.6.

What It Does

Installs a complete PALM modeling environment in one invocation:

• PALM Model System v25.10 — Core LES model, compiled from source with gfortran + OpenMPI
• WRF4PALM v1.1.2 — WRF output → PALM dynamic driver (INIFOR) interface
• palmpy v1.1.0 — Static driver generator from geodata (shapefiles, geotiffs)
• Installs all system dependencies via apt (OpenMPI, netCDF, FFTW, etc.)
• Creates isolated conda environments for WRF4PALM and palmpy (gdal, salem, rasterio)
• Skips already-installed components on re-run

Usage

1. Install the Skill

Option A: Claude Code plugin manager (recommended)

claude plugins install palm-install

Option B: npx

npx palm-install

Option C: npm global

npm install -g palm-install

2. Prepare Source Packages

Download the 3 required packages from the links in Download Packages below. Place them all in a single directory (e.g., ~/Downloads/palm-packages/).

Note: The PALM source (palm_model_system-master.tar.gz) is hosted on GitLab and may require manual download if your network blocks gitlab.palm-model.org. The other two are on GitHub.

3. Invoke the Skill

In Claude Code, type:

/palm-install

The skill will:

• Ask for the path to your package directory
• Check all 3 packages are present
• Install system dependencies via apt (OpenMPI, netCDF, FFTW, etc.)
• Compile PALM from source (~10 min)
• Create conda environments for WRF4PALM and palmpy (~10 min)
• Verify each component

Each step reports [OK], [SKIP], or [FAIL]. Already-installed components are automatically skipped on re-run. Total install time: ~25 minutes.

4. Customize (Optional)

Default install path is $HOME/Build_WRF. To change:

export WRF_INSTALL_DIR=/your/custom/path

Download Packages

| # | File | Size | Download | |---|------|------|----------| | 1 | palm_model_system-master.tar.gz | 47MB | GitLab | | 2 | WRF4PALM-WRF4PALM_v1.1.2.tar.gz | 0.7MB | GitHub | | 3 | palmpy-1.1.0.tar.gz | 23MB | GitHub |

System Requirements

• Linux (Ubuntu 20.04+, tested on 24.04)
• sudo access (for apt install)
• ~10GB free disk space
• ~25 minutes install time

Installation Directory

Default: $HOME/Build_WRF

To customize, set before invoking:

export WRF_INSTALL_DIR=/your/custom/path

Output Structure

$HOME/Build_WRF/
├── palm/                     # PALM binaries + config
│   ├── bin/                  # palmbuild, palmrun, palmtest, inifor, ...
│   └── .palm.config.default
├── palm_src/                 # PALM source
├── WRF4PALM/                 # WRF→PALM interface
│   ├── run_config_wrf4palm.py
│   └── namelist.wrf4palm
├── palmpy/                   # Static driver generator
├── miniconda3/               # Conda environments
│   └── envs/
│       ├── wrf4palm/         # salem, xarray, gdal, rasterio
│       └── palmpyenv/        # geopandas, gdal, netcdf4

MPI Strategy

PALM uses system OpenMPI from apt (libopenmpi-dev), separate from any custom MPICH builds. Both can coexist — just manage PATH:

• PALM: use system PATH (OpenMPI at /usr/bin/)
• WRF: prepend custom MPICH path (~/Build_WRF/LIBRARIES/mpich/bin/)

What's Next

After installation:

# 1. Test PALM
export PATH=$HOME/Build_WRF/palm/bin:$PATH
palmtest --cases urban_environment_restart --cores 4

# 2. Convert WRF output to PALM dynamic driver
conda activate wrf4palm
cd $HOME/Build_WRF/WRF4PALM
# Edit namelist.wrf4palm
python run_config_wrf4palm.py

# 3. Generate PALM static driver from geodata
conda activate palmpyenv
python $HOME/Build_WRF/palmpy/examples/make_static.py

Troubleshooting

| Problem | Fix | |---------|-----| | E: Unable to correct problems with apt | Pin runtime libs to base versions with --allow-downgrades (Ubuntu 24.04 security repo mismatch) | | externally-managed-environment pip error | Add --break-system-packages (PEP 668) | | conda env create blocked by ToS | Run conda tos accept --override-channels --channel https://repo.anaconda.com/pkgs/main | | ncl-ncarg not found | Skip — deprecated visualization tool, not needed | | mpif90 resolves to MPICH not OpenMPI | Run PALM without WRF's MPICH in PATH |

License

MIT — See LICENSE