  The Advanced Research WRF (Weather Research and Forecasting) model is a
popular atmospheric model used for research and Numerical Weather Prediction
(NWP). However, despite its popularity, its set-up and configuration often
demand several interdisciplinary skills that go beyond the understanding of
physical processes. Pre-processing tasks, such as importing custom
high-resolution datasets in the WRF Pre-processing System (WPS), still require
a considerable effort from the user. We present GIS4WRF, a free, open-source,
and cross-platform QGIS Python plug-in to help scientists and practitioners
with their Advanced Research WRF modelling workflows. GIS4WRF incorporates new
and existing tools for data-processing, configuration, simulation, and
visualization into a single graphical environment, and offers WRF-CMake binary
distributions for Windows, macOS, and Linux. We highlight its main features and
provide useful insights into several key approaches and techniques used in its
development. We end with two example applications highlighting the
contributions of GIS4WRF in simplifying several WRF-related tasks.
