The Advanced Weather Interactive Processing System (AWIPS) is a National Weather Service modernization program, contracted through NOAA's AWIPS Management Office. In true partnership spirit, the Government and PRC have completed a development process that is leading to full deployment of AWIPS through the conterminous 48 states, Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and Guam.
On 4 August 1998, the Goodland, KS WSFO site was struck by lightning, shutting it down completely. The site notified the Network Control Facility at 0838 UTC to report a burning smell coming from the AWIPS equipment. Instantly, the GTE satellite communications maintenance technician was dispatched. The HP overall system maintenance technician was also dispatched from the HP Denver office. This was an excellent "worst case" example of a catastrophic failure, although nobody wants to see such a failure occur at all, obviously.
Partial data ingest was restored to the site by 2305 UTC that same day. The GTE maintenance technician had the site fully restored by 2150 UTC on 5 August as were parts needed for non-AWIPS systems. The HP technician took longer, because additional parts were required.
Follow-on work led to the creation of an emergency lightning reconstruction kit. This kit is a "grab and go" bag of parts aimed at providing all likely parts required to bring the site up in minimal time. As experience is gained in severe weather situations, PRC and HP will continue to work together to develop quick and responsive methods for implementing contingency repair methods such as these.
We have also observed excesses in readiness
planning for these emergencies, and are energetically developing deployable
methods that will provide rapid and responsive recovery, while minimizing
maintenance costs at the bottom line