Preprints, Twelfth International Conference on Interactive Information and Processing Systems (IIPS) for Meteorology, Oceanography, and Hydrology, 28 January - 2 February 1996, Atlanta, GA, 190-193.
A. E. MacDonald and Joseph S. Wakefield(1)
NOAA Forecast Systems Laboratory
Boulder, Colorado
Table of Contents
For several years, the National Weather Service (NWS) has been engaged in activities directed toward modernizing and restructuring its operations. The activities include as major components the development of a new radar system (NEXRAD; the individual hardware units are known as WSR-88D), a new automated surface observing system (ASOS), and a new communications and forecaster workstation system, the Advanced Weather Interactive Processing System (AWIPS).
In preparation for the development and deployment of AWIPS, the NWS has asked the Forecast Systems Laboratory (FSL) to participate in several risk reduction activities. The primary activity has been developing and testing a series of forecaster workstations at the Denver and Norman NWS forecast offices (WSFOs). Currently, systems known as DARE (Denver AWIPS Risk Reduction and Requirements Evaluation) in Denver and Pre-AWIPS in Norman are being used by the WSFO staffs. These systems have provided valuable insight into modernized operations; knowledge gained in Denver and Norman has been beneficial in refining the specifications that are being used to develop AWIPS.
Continuing with its AWIPS risk-reduction role, FSL is developing a new forecaster workstation system known as WFO-Advanced, which will support modernized NWS local operations (i.e., at Weather Forecast Offices). WFO-Advanced features include data ingest, management, and display; automated product generation; hydrometeorological applications; and product dissemination, which together provide the opportunity to address the Congressionally mandated staffing requirements for the modernized NWS. Such operations were demonstrated in 1995 using WFO-Advanced prototypes in two real-time forecast exercises at FSL; soon it will be deployed for operational testing in Denver.
WFO-Advanced brings together many FSL and NWS research and development efforts. The system comprises:
· National and local data feeds, including a local data monitor for data quality control, and high-resolution analyses and short-range forecasts from FSL's Local Analysis and Prediction System (LAPS).
· An interactive display system (forecaster workstation) for data access and manipulation.
· The AWIPS Forecast Preparation System (AFPS), with which forecasters visualize and edit forecast weather elements. The resulting database will be used for computer generation of routine NWS forecast products.
· Three-dimensional visualization and editing. Current work on the latter involves aviation applications, and is not part of the initial WFO-Advanced system.
· Applications, including NWS-developed hydrological applications and portions of NASA's General Meteorological Package (GEMPAK), for manipulation and display of gridded data.
· Dissemination, which provides data to local governments and emergency operations officials.
A functional diagram of these components is shown in the figure at right. The user interface for the six items within the dashed box uses a "workspace" concept. A workspace is a construct of windows defining a complete screen. The screen can be arranged with windows as desired, but the windows of one workspace are independent of the others.
The WFO-Advanced display includes six independent workspaces. Menu buttons along the bottom of the display make switching between workspaces easy and fast. The workspaces are identified as:
· D2D - Display 2-Dimensional
· E2D - Edit 2-Dimensional
· D3D - Display 3-Dimensional
· E3D - Edit 3-Dimensional
· APP - Applications
· GEM - GEMPAK
These are discussed in more detail below.
The central element of the WFO-Advanced system is the two-dimensional forecaster workstation, providing integrated access to meteorological data supplied by national and local services (Williams and Davis, 1996; Edwards, 1996). This 2-d display is an outgrowth of earlier FSL work described by Bullock and Grote (1994). Being developed on AWIPS-equivalent hardware, major WFO-Advanced design considerations include
· developing an efficient user interface,
· meeting AWIPS graphics performance specifications,
· exploring trade-offs between pregenerated and on-the-fly graphics, and
· providing support for interactive-graphics techniques.
After experimenting with different user interface styles, FSL chose a tiled display, as shown schematically here.
Click to see a somewhat larger version of this image.
The user selects datasets from the menu for display in the large pane. Small panes are used for monitoring; their contents may be swapped into the main display for animation and other data manipulation. Zooming and panning is allowed in the small panes, so the user can focus on a particular area of interest if desired. Newly-arrived data are automatically displayed in all panes.
As part of its modernization and restructuring program, the NWS has specified that WFOs will maintain a set of gridded digital forecasts from which routine forecast products will be automatically generated. AFPS, the AWIPS component that provides the tools with which the forecaster will prepare and manage these gridded forecast datasets (NOAA, 1993; Mathewson, 1996), is being developed at FSL and the NWS Techniques Development Laboratory (TDL). It will support preparation of most routine forecasts at WFOs when it is deployed in the late 1990s.
For decades, NWS forecasters have generated weather forecasts using the same basic process. After reviewing numerical model output and regional observations, they compose forecasts in the form of text messages. Use of AFPS will relieve the forecasters of the burden of typing these text messages, and promises to fundamentally change the way forecasts are produced by shifting emphasis from text composition to interactive editing of gridded datasets.
FSL has developed a suite of graphical forecast editing tools, which are designed to allow WFO forecasters to efficiently visualize and revise the weather elements (e.g., temperature, wind, clouds) needed to produce forecasts for all services (public, marine, aviation, etc.). These editors are linked with database initialization techniques developed at TDL (using Model Output Statistics) and FSL (direct from model grids -- Wier and Wakefield, 1996), and text generators from TDL.
FSL has been experimenting with three-dimensional visualization for several years. The primary focus has been work with grids produced by LAPS and the National Centers for Environmental Prediction's (NCEP) Rapid Update Cycle (RUC). Examples of FSL model visualization have appeared in several publications, such as on the covers of the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 75, no. 3, March 1994, the Preprints, Tenth International Conference on Interactive Information and Processing Systems for Meteorology, Oceanography, and Hydrology, AMS, Nashville, Tennessee, January 1994, and the FSL Forum.
Such visualizations of LAPS forecast fields are used frequently at FSL's daily weather briefings. For WFO-Advanced, a suitable user interface has been developed so that WFO forecasters have access to 3-d displays of LAPS and RUC grids in support of routine operations.
An aircraft icing editor has been developed at FSL (Sherretz et al., 1996). This is the first of several aviation impact variable editors to be developed as part of the Federal Aviation Administration Aviation Gridded Forecast System. This editor, which was designed for use at NCEP's Aviation Weather Center, is not part of the initial WFO-Advanced complement; similar tools will be added eventually as appropriate for WFO use.
Programs developed outside of the WFO-Advanced environment include the NWS Office of Hydrology (OH) NWS River Forecast System and WFO hydrology applications. These hydrology applications use the AWIPS Application Programmer Interface prototypes being developed at the NWS Advanced Development and Demonstration Laboratory and OH. For WFO-Advanced, these applications have been adapted to read FSL datasets.
Other application programs, such as a locally-developed color table editor, can be tested independently before being integrated into the 2-d display system.
NCEP is developing a distributed computing and communications system, N-AWIPS, to support National Centers forecast operations. This X-based system is being used at NCEP and some other NWS and academic sites. N-AWIPS provides access to operational and experimental numerical model graphics and grids, geostationary satellite data, surface and upper-air observations, and text products.
N-AWIPS' grid access module centers around GEMPAK (desJardins and Petersen, 1985), which allows forecasters to perform virtually any mathematical operation on model grids. GEMPAK is available to WFO-Advanced users in one workspace. Eventually, we hope to integrate such capabilities into the 2-d display.
The goal of LAPS (McGinley et al., 1992) is to provide real-time, three-dimensional, local-scale analyses and short-range forecasts for operational use. LAPS fuses meso-beta-scale (20 - 200 km) data from many data platforms, including Doppler radar, wind profiler, surface sensors, satellite, and aircraft, producing high-resolution analyses and forecasts over a WFO's area of forecast responsibility. The availability of LAPS at operational weather facilities enables the local use of high-resolution data without the need to transmit large volumes of data and model results to and from a central site.
LAPS addresses the needs of many government agencies in the areas of data analysis, data fusion, data assimilation, quality control, three-dimensional display and visualization, and numerical modeling.
LAPS work for WFO-Advanced is in three specific areas:
· Creating a "locatable" LAPS grid, that can easily be tailored to run at any WFO (2). Analyses on a 10-km grid are produced each hour.
· Standardizing the data ingest components, in particular to accommodate site-specific local data sources.
· Developing the predictive component of LAPS for use in WFOs. The goal has been to produce a version of the forecast model that will run 12-hour forecasts four times per day on desktop/desk-side workstations.
The NOAA Emergency Management Weather Dissemination Project (Subramaniam and Jesuroga, 1995; Subramaniam, 1996), conducts experiments to see how advanced meteorological information can be used by local governments. Initial interaction has been with the City of Boulder and Boulder County emergency management offices, where an experimental decision-support system is being tested. Additional sites using this system include the Denver Urban Drainage and Flood Control District and the Denver WSFO. In addition to general weather data, the Dissemination System includes information about flash flood potential, conditions for wildfire initiation, severe convective and winter storms, and other weather-related information important in emergency management operations. A geographic information system allows emergency operations personnel to relate weather information to geographical, cultural, and political features.
For WFO-Advanced, the official forecast database, as embodied in the AFPS grids, has been tied to the system to provide improved forecast data to emergency operations officials. In addition, experimental text products produced manually, by AFPS, and by the hydrology applications, are available for viewing.
Beginning in October 1994, an ambitious 2-month milestone development schedule was adopted for WFO-Advanced, leading to the two real-time exercise systems in August and October 1995. Components of WFO-Advanced are the responsibility of several groups within FSL; each group's work has been largely independent of the others.
The August forecast exercise included mostly in-house forecasters, issuing routine WFO-type products (AFD, NOW, AFP, ZFP, FT, CCF, MEF) and convective forecasts (SPS, SVR, TOR), as necessary. In October and November, visiting NWS forecasters and local meteorologists issued a full suite of WFO products during a 50-day, 18-hour-per-day exercise. These exercises, and preliminary evaluation from August, are described by Roberts et al. (1996).
WFO-Advanced will be demonstrated at the AMS Annual Meeting, and will be used for daily weather briefings during the conferences. The software is being updated to run on the newly specified AWIPS hardware. Near-term plans include
· Operational testing at NWSFO Denver, beginning in mid-1996. WFO-Advanced systems should be installed at Denver by March, with nonlocal data supplied by the AWIPS Satellite Broadcast Network (SBN). After a period of familiarization and training, the Denver staff will begin using WFO-Advanced for their day-to-day forecast duties. DARE equipment will be removed.
· Operational testing at NWSFO Norman, beginning in late 1996.
WFO-Advanced can easily be adapted to run at any NWS site. As noted, it uses the AWIPS SBN, connects to local WSR-88D radar(s), displays data on AWIPS scales, and includes a generalized local analysis capability (LAPS). The only significant site-specific work required is developing interfaces to local data systems (mesonets).
A system development process starts with requirements and proceeds in a structured evolution to develop and implement an operational system. If the requirements are valid, and the development process is flexible, the result will be a system which improves operational capability. Unfortunately, there are many examples in many fields in which the system development process does not work very well. The original requirements may be poorly posed, the development may take so long that it becomes outdated before completion, or the system requirements may be so complex that they cannot be met within reasonable time and budgets.
FSL's WFO-Advanced should be measured as discussed above. Does it do the real job efficiently and easily in the forecast office? Does it help the meteorologists and technicians produce a better product? Is it complete, such that when it is installed, existing systems such as AFOS, PUP, SWIS, etc. are no longer needed? These questions can be clearly answered as we receive feedback from WFO-Advanced users at the Denver WSFO. If, as we expect, the system does the complete job, we believe it will be very helpful to the National Weather Service in its efforts to implement AWIPS.
Information on WFO-Advanced and other work at FSL is available on the World Wide Web via URL http://www.fsl.noaa.gov/.
Bullock, C. S., and U. H. Grote, 1994: FX-ALPHA: A new FSL workstation. Preprints, Tenth International Conference on Interactive Information and Processing Systems for Meteorology, Oceanography, and Hydrology, Nashville, Amer. Meteor. Soc., 354-357.
desJardins, M. L., and R. A. Petersen, 1985: GEMPAK: A meteorological system for research and education. Preprints, First International Conference on Interactive Information and Processing Systems for Meteorology, Oceanography, and Hydrology, Los Angeles, Amer. Meteor. Soc., 313-319.
Edwards, J., 1996: Implementation of FSL's Data Acquisition component of the WFO-Advanced. Preprints, Twelfth International Conference on Interactive Information and Processing Systems for Meteorology, Oceanography, and Hydrology, Atlanta, Amer. Meteor. Soc., in this volume.
Mathewson, M. A., 1996: Using the AWIPS Forecast Preparation System (AFPS). Preprints, Twelfth International Conference on Interactive Information and Processing Systems for Meteorology, Oceanography, and Hydrology, Atlanta, Amer. Meteor. Soc., in this volume.
McGinley, J. A., S. C. Albers, and P. A. Stamus, 1992: Local data assimilation and analysis for nowcasting. Adv. Space Res., 12, no. 7, 179-188.
NOAA, 1993: NOAA Special Report The AWIPS Forecast Preparation System, USGPO 89042, July 1993, 100 pp. NOAA/ERL/FSL, Boulder, CO, and NOAA/NWS/OSD/TDL, Silver Spring, MD.
Roberts, W. F., P. C. Kucera, C. M. Lusk, D. C. Walker, and L. E. Johnson, 1996: 1995 real-time forecast exercise for WFO-Advanced. Preprints, Twelfth International Conference on Interactive Information and Processing Systems for Meteorology, Oceanography, and Hydrology, Atlanta, Amer. Meteor. Soc., in this volume.
Sherretz, L. A., D. M. Rodgers, and R. Olson, 1996: Enabling National Weather Service forecasters to edit four-dimensional grids generated by the Aviation Gridded Forecast System. Preprints, Twelfth International Conference on Interactive Information and Processing Systems for Meteorology, Oceanography, and Hydrology, Atlanta, Amer. Meteor. Soc., in this volume.
Snook, J., 1996: Local domain forecasting support to the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games. Preprints, Twelfth International Conference on Interactive Information and Processing Systems for Meteorology, Oceanography, and Hydrology, Atlanta, Amer. Meteor. Soc., in this volume.
Stamus, P., 1996: Providing weather support to the 1996 Summer Olympic Games with LAPS. Preprints, Twelfth International Conference on Interactive Information and Processing Systems for Meteorology, Oceanography, and Hydrology, Atlanta, Amer. Meteor. Soc., in this volume.
Subramaniam, C., 1996: Adding a surveillance subsystem to the Emergency Management Decision Support System. Preprints, Twelfth International Conference on Interactive Information and Processing Systems for Meteorology, Oceanography, and Hydrology, Atlanta, Amer. Meteor. Soc., in this volume.
____, and R. T. Jesuroga, 1995: The Dissemination Project: A decision support tool for emergency management. Proceedings, American Nuclear Society Fifth Topical Meeting on Emergency Preparedness and Response, Savannah, A. Fitzgerald, ed., 407-411.
Wier, S. K., and J. S. Wakefield, 1996: Using numerical model output to provide initial forecasts of surface weather for the AFPS. Preprints, Twelfth International Conference on Interactive Information and Processing Systems for Meteorology, Oceanography, and Hydrology, Atlanta, Amer. Meteor. Soc., in this volume.
Williams, S., and D. Davis, 1996: The development of the WFO-Advanced hydrometeorological workstation. Preprints, Twelfth International Conference on Interactive Information and Processing Systems for Meteorology, Oceanography, and Hydrology, Atlanta, Amer. Meteor. Soc., in this volume.
Footnotes
- (1)
- Corresponding author address: Joseph S. Wakefield, NOAA/ERL/FSL R/E/FS6, 325 Broadway, Boulder, CO 80303-3328. E-mail: joseph.s.wakefield@noaa.gov.
- (2)
- LAPS has previously been ported to several sites, including Oklahoma and Florida, and will be operational at NWSFO Peachtree City, Georgia, in support of the 1996 Summer Olympic Games (Snook, 1996; Stamus, 1996). WFO-Advanced work will allow such ports to be performed routinely.
This document is maintained by Joe Wakefield.
Last updated 16 May 97
