AWIPS is the final element in the $4.5 billion NWS Modernization Program. The Climate meteorological application is an integral part of AWIPS Build 4.2 and is the latest version of a program whose roots can be traced back to the Automation of Forecast Operations and Services (AFOS) computer and product display system.
The new Climate application for AWIPS will produce automated daily, monthly, seasonal, and annual climatological summaries for dissemination over the NOAA Weather Radio (NWR) and NOAA Weather Wire Service (NWWS). Production of the daily climate summaries will be implemented in Build 4.2; the monthly, seasonal, and annual summaries will be deferred to the next major version of the AWIPS software.
The daily climate summary for the NWWS is a tabular product consisting of numerous meteorological variables such as temperature, wind direction and speed, pressure, visibility, weather, and cloud cover. The NWR summary is a subset of the information contained in the NWWS product because of time limitations imposed by broadcast constraints and is a text product that will be transferred to the NWR Console Replacement System for dissemination.
Setup, configuration, and execution of the new Climate application are
simplified through the use of Graphical User Interfaces (GUIs). The
GUIs allow users to choose the stations, meteorological elements, and
climatological elements (e.g., record, normal, and departure from normal
values) that will be summarized. Climate also includes a separate application
and interface that enables users to easily initialize and view the Climate
databases. It was the difficulty initializing the databases that precluded
widespread acceptance of the AFOS version of the Climate application