Introduce test cases from ufs-case-studies platform

[clouden90]

Description

Per discussion (#736), The "retrieve_data.py" unit tests now take a very long time to run (more than an hour for a single file on Hera!) due to having to retrieve very large nemsio files over the internet for the ufs-case-studies cases.
EPIC-DTO team has a deliverable to include 4 scientifically-validated UFS test cases (must be from ufs-case-studies platform based on the description) into SRW apps.

Solution

The solution will be thru #776 as @christinaholtNOAA recommended. EPIC-DTO plans to add the following cases to SRW apps:

• 2020 Cold Air Damming
• 2020 July CAPE case
• 2019 Halloween Storm
• 2019 Hurricane Barry

Short summary for IBCS/LBCS/configurations can be found in this confluence page.

FYI @EdwardSnyder-NOAA. I noticed RRFS also have plans to add test cases for RRFS release. Please feel free to let me know if there is an overlap. We can coordinate accordingly.

[christinaholtNOAA]

The point of these tests is to make sure that we know where these files are and that they work for this type of file. It's not about a specific test case or data. If it runs fast enough on other platforms, we can skip it on Hera.

Alternatively, retrieve_data.py could be modified to just confirm that a file exists and skip pulling it. In that case, we assume that wget would work for a file that exists, but we still check that.

[clouden90]

The point of these tests is to make sure that we know where these files are and that they work for this type of file. It's not about a specific test case or data. If it runs fast enough on other platforms, we can skip it on Hera.

Alternatively, retrieve_data.py could be modified to just confirm that a file exists and skip pulling it. In that case, we assume that wget would work for a file that exists, but we still check that.

Thanks for the comments, @christinaholtNOAA , and I totally agreed (as I pointed out we could skip these tests on some platforms in the original PR). If no one else has other opinions, #776 would be a good hotfix for this issue. We then can move forward to add test cases thru WE2E framework. Thanks.

[MichaelLueken]

Closed with PR #776.