The Meteorological workstation has become an increasingly important tool within the forecasting process. It has developed from a simply graphical application to a fully integrated set of functions that enable the forecaster to not only analyse current and forecast data, but also create a myriad of products ranging from real-time warnings to sophisticated graphical products such as significant weather charts. The UK Met Office has traditionally invested a large amount of resource in the writing and maintenance of workstation software and over the last fifteen years has developed its own workstation known as Horace. Over the next year, the Horace system will be retired and be replaced by a complete workstation solution (Visual Weather) sourced from IBL, a specialist software company based in central Europe. By working closely with IBL, any gaps in functionality will be filled and, from late 2007, the new workstation will be rolled out across the organisation.

This talk will describe the new workstation and its role in the new production process including an account of the development of web services based on the OGC (Open Geospatial Consortium) specifications. The exposure of these services will provide a foundational capability needed to support the new “service-oriented architecture" (SOA) that will deliver products over the Internet as well as through more traditional delivery mechanisms.