The United States Historical Climate Network-Modernization (USHCN-M) is slated for national deployment in support of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA's) mission to provide and maintain climate reference data suitable to the evaluation of regional climate variability and long-term climate trends. The proposed USHCN-M will be jointly managed by the National Weather Service (NWS) and the National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS), with NWS having primary responsibility for system operations and management and NESDIS having primary responsibility for data quality control and dissemination and for the maintenance of historical records. When fully implemented, the system will include approximately 1200 automated surface observing stations. One near-term objective of the project is bringing the system from development to operations.

In this paper, we examine the procedures documented in NDS 30-3 Operational Test and Evaluation and NWSI 30-302 Operational Test and Evaluation Process (OT&E) as a means of systematically qualifying the performance of the proposed USHCN-M and documenting the readiness of the system for national deployment. OT&E activities may be coordinated with a formal system commissioning, as documented in NDS 80-2 System Commissioning and Decommissioning and NWSI 80-201 System Commissioning Process, or completed as an independent activity.