diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index 3f1c322fcc..97b14850ad 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -1,4 +1,3 @@
-======
 fv3net
 ======
 
@@ -6,4 +5,4 @@ fv3net
 
 Improving the GFDL FV3 model physics with machine learning. See the [documentation](https://vulcanclimatemodeling.com/docs/fv3net/) for more information on using this suite of tools. 
 
-<p><small>Project based on the <a target="_blank" href="https://drivendata.github.io/cookiecutter-data-science/">cookiecutter data science project template</a>. #cookiecutterdatascience</small></p>
+Disclaimer: This is a work in progress.
diff --git a/constraints.txt b/constraints.txt
index 4d1e9ac3c5..f0ab3798e6 100644
--- a/constraints.txt
+++ b/constraints.txt
@@ -31,7 +31,7 @@ cachetools==3.1.1
 cachy==0.3.0
 certifi==2019.11.28
 cffi==1.14.4
-cftime==1.2.1
+cftime==1.4.1
 chardet==3.0.4
 cleo==0.7.6
 click==7.1.2
@@ -149,7 +149,6 @@ nc-time-axis==1.2.0
 nest-asyncio==1.5.1
 netcdf4==1.5.5
 networkx==2.5
-nose==1.3.7
 notebook==6.2.0
 numba==0.50.1
 numcodecs==0.7.2
@@ -252,7 +251,7 @@ websocket-client==0.57.0
 werkzeug==1.0.1
 wheel==0.35.1
 wrapt==1.12.1
-xarray==0.16.0
+xarray==0.17.0
 xgcm==0.3.0
 xmltodict==0.12.0
 yarl==1.6.3
diff --git a/external/fv3fit/requirements.txt b/external/fv3fit/requirements.txt
index fcfff6f5f1..436ef7aa3c 100644
--- a/external/fv3fit/requirements.txt
+++ b/external/fv3fit/requirements.txt
@@ -53,7 +53,6 @@ MetPy
 more-itertools
 msgpack
 networkx
-nose
 numba
 oauthlib
 packaging
diff --git a/external/fv3gfs-util b/external/fv3gfs-util
index 76b6964368..1d19a34b08 160000
--- a/external/fv3gfs-util
+++ b/external/fv3gfs-util
@@ -1 +1 @@
-Subproject commit 76b69643686d1b7e6132e978aa1f1250c6a7d866
+Subproject commit 1d19a34b088b46c1a08ce76b5e04f56751e64864
diff --git a/external/vcm/setup.py b/external/vcm/setup.py
index b5e4695e1a..a89c8108b9 100644
--- a/external/vcm/setup.py
+++ b/external/vcm/setup.py
@@ -24,7 +24,7 @@
     "gcsfs",
     "zarr",
     "xgcm",
-    "cftime",
+    "cftime>=1.4.1",
     "pytest",
     "google-cloud-storage>=1.28.0",
     "google-api-core",
diff --git a/workflows/dataflow/setup.py b/workflows/dataflow/setup.py
index a8b4bf6127..738bdb2c8e 100644
--- a/workflows/dataflow/setup.py
+++ b/workflows/dataflow/setup.py
@@ -14,7 +14,7 @@
     "xgcm==0.3.0",
     "zarr==2.4.0",
     "numba",
-    "cftime==1.1.1.2",
+    "cftime>=1.4.1",
     "vcm",
 ]