Abstract: In 1998, the Deputy Under Secretary for Oceans and Atmosphere chartered an independent review of the requirements and plans for Advanced Weather Interactive Processing System (AWIPS) Builds 5 and 6. The Independent Review Team (IRT) Assessment concluded AWIPS Build 5 would significantly enhance the utility of the AWIPS for the Weather Forecast Offices and River Forecast Centers and would be very important for the NWS to meet its core mission requirements. For the past three years, the AWIPS Program focused on the development and deployment of five software releases to implement what became known as the IRT requirements. The National Weather Service's Office of Science and Technology (OST) will deploy the final Build 5 release, 5.2.2, in September 2002. IRT functionality includes the full Interactive Forecast Preparation System capability, the System for Convection Analysis and Nowcasting , the Weather Field Office Hydrologic Forecast System, Daily Infrastructure (forecast critique and climate reporting) and upgrades to National Weather Service River Forecast System, several new features for the Weather Forecast Office - Advanced including the efficient exchange of rain-gauge data with NEXRAD for rain-fall calibration and the receipt and display of new model guidance and satellite data. OST also implemented such high priority requirements as support for national scale data necessary for National Centers, Alaska and Hawaii and the National Center NMAP functionality. This paper will begin by addressing the state of certain key capabilities at the start of Build 5 and describe AWIPS' evolution through the final Build 5 software release.