Evolution of the Forecast Decision Support Environment

The Forecast Decision Support Environment (FDSE) project is a collection of risk reduction activities designed to test ideas and operational concepts for the forecast office of the future. Faced with an ever-increasing volume of weather information, National Weather Service (NWS) forecasters face greater challenges simply determining which data sets are pertinent for a given weather scenario, then effectively and efficiently generating forecasts based on that information. The NWS Office of Science and Technology, recognizing this challenge, tasked the Global Systems Division (GSD) with exploring and implementing new data management and processing capabilities to help alleviate forecasters from the burden of sifting through massive volumes of data.

These new capabilities are intended to reduce the time forecasters spend on the production of forecast products and information in order to spend more time supporting Impact-Based Decision Support Services (IDSS). The capabilities will provide forecasters with sophisticated data mining techniques so they can be alerted when anomalies are detected, defined thresholds are exceeded, or other events occur. All new tools and applications will leverage existing AWIPS II functionality and developed within the AWIPS Development Environment (ADE).

This presentation will discuss the design approach and areas of initial development.