With the approach of the severe weather season of 2001, several Weather Forecast Offices (WFOs) in the National Weather Service Central Region identified requirements for an additional (fifth) AWIPS workstation. Past experiences at WFOs having a fifth workstation confirmed its benefits in interrogating additional radar data and assisting in performing core forecast and warning duties during severe weather operations. Accordingly, a strategy was designed to reconfigure a Linux PC already on station to serve as an interim additional AWIPS workstation to satisfy new requirements of severe weather operations. This Linux PC will ultimately be used as the Displaced Real-Time (DRT) training computer. Until then, the reconfigured AWIPS workstation will provide valuable support to severe weather operations.

This presentation will describe how the redirection of computer resources greatly enhanced severe weather operations at several National Weather Service offices in the Central Region. In particular, configuration issues, as well as specific data display strategies used at the WFO in Hastings, Nebraska, will be addressed.