As the focus of forecast operations in the National Weather Service shifts to modernized communication systems, the forecaster will have access to huge data sets. More time will be needed to consider the scientific relationships as the data are interpreted to anticipate severe weather and other weather changes in the short term as well long term forecasts. More than ever, there is a need to eliminate any repetitive tasks that would add up to a significant amount of the
forecaster's time. The XNOW software is designed especially to help the forecaster more efficiently formulate and compose the standard text products within the guidelines established by the National Weather Service. Standard coding and product formats are reduced to simple key strokes allowing the forecaster to concentrate on the ontents of the message. A text editor is included in the software package which includes the common cursor functions. The main feature of Xnow is the handling of segmented NWS products that utilize Universal Generic Code such as the Zone Forecasts (ZFP) and the
Short Term Forecast (NOW). The program allows the user to set up forecast groups by painting in zones with the cursor while the zone coding, county names/ numbers, and the date/time line are assigned to the group. The editor can handle the ZFP as a whole product or can look at each zone group individually. A specially built speller routine contains standard abbreviations used in NWS text products. However, XNOW is not tied to the default editor. It can be setup to use most of the popular commercial editor programs. A communications setup contained in XNOW makes transmitting and requesting products possible from the system database a simple windows operation.
The above features as well as other operations are demonstrated here. The observer will quickly see why XNOW will be a valuable tool to the operational forecaster in the modernized National Weather Service