The National Weather Service (NWS) is using the Radar Products Central Collection/Distribution Service (RPCCDS) to collect all Doppler Weather Surveillance Radar (WSR-88D) Archive III products. Once collected those products are being transmitted via multicast to the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC), where they are entered into the permanent national archive. A subset of the Archive III products were collected through the RPCCDS and sent via multicast to NCDC for over two year (since January 2001). Additional WSR-88D products were added to the RPCCDS collection to complete the Archive III products set. The RPCCDS multicast broadcast replaces the older magnetic media that was used in the past to deliver WSR-88D products to NCDC. This has resulted in a more efficent, timely delivery of products and a significant cost savings to the Governmnet. This paper will delineate the plan for transition from magnetic media to electronic transfer of all Archive III products.

The views expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of the National Weather Service.