The AWIPS baseline code did not include a number of meteorological fields used to enhance operational forecasting in the National Weather Service Forecast Office. Although the Product Maker software was designed as a flexibility tool for creating new or non-included meteorological fields into AWIPS locally, the users found this hard to manage. Thus, over 80 fields were created using the Volume Browser code. These fields support more complex analysis of operationally significant weather and bring science to the forefront on the AWIPS system.

The first portion of this talk is an information sharing section which will highlight the ability of the AWIPS Volume Browser code. It will also provide a brief discussion of the Volume Browser web page resource available online. This web page is maintained by the author but acts as a collaborative tool for all AWIPS users to share their Volume Browser developments ( http://www.crh.noaa.gov/arx/vb/ )

The second part of this talk will illustrate the enhancements these additions bring to the field forecaster through the use of 2001 case examples. Warm and cold season examples will be given which illustrate just how powerful these enhancements can be to serving the NWS mission.