In January 2001, the Southeast River Forecast Center (SERFC) in Peachtree City, Georgia was selected to be a beta test site for a weather collaboration program called FX-Collaborate (FXC). FXC was developed by the NOAA Forecast Systems Laboratory (FSL) located in Boulder, Colorado and is a Java based program that works on Windows and Linux PCs.

At the SERFC, FXC has several uses as a communications tool. Its main purpose is as a graphical coordination tool between the SERFC and emergency management agencies. In this "collaboration" mode, the SERFC FXC workstation has been used to communicate meteorological and hydrologic information with up to four other participants at one time. Any one of these participants, using FXC, can load products or annotate maps with these changes becoming visible to the other participants

FXC can also be used as an independent weather workstation. In the "stand-alone server mode", FXC can download the full suite of AWIPS and select Internet products but will not be communicating with anyone that may be in collaboration mode.

FXC can operate on any Linux or Windows PC that has an Internet connection with a static IP address. There are two types of FXC software, the client software and server software. The server software loads on a Linux PC that is capable of receiving AWIPS data. This will be the server that feeds the AWIPS data to the client PCs. There is two-way communications between each client PC and the FXC server. All communications go through the server before reaching the other clients.

Currently, the SERFC has FX-Connect installed at the following agencies: National Hurricane Center Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Hurricane Liaison Team Office FEMA Region IV Florida Division of Emergency Management Georgia Emergency Management Agency North Carolina Division of Emergency Management South Florida Water Management District South Carolina Emergency Preparedness Division