Testing and Validating Automated Tropical Cyclone Forecast Functionality in AWIPS

The National Weather Service (NWS) Office of Central Processing’s AWIPS Software Development Team (ASDT) is migrating the United States Naval Research Laboratory’s (NRL) Automated Tropical Cyclone Forecast (ATCF) software functionality into AWIPS. This integration in AWIPS provides forecasters with a streamlined workflow, additional functionality, improved hydrometeorological data integration, and improved backup capabilities to the National Hurricane Center (NHC) and the Central Pacific Hurricane Center (CPHC). Since ATCF is mission critical software for NHC and CPHC, a simple cutover to the AWIPS ATCF software is not feasible.

The presentation will explain the testing and validation of the AWIPS ATCF software in operations. Details are provided about the overall schedule, test methodologies and plans, issues encountered, and opportunities leveraged. The successful adoption of AWIPS ATCF will benefit NHC and CPHC in both the current and future cloud-based implementations of AWIPS.