Toward a New National Weather Service: Preliminary Assessment of the Operational Test and Evaluation Process for the Advanced Weather Information Process Systems (1996)

Missouri, and the RFC and WFO at Salt Lake City, Utah. The committee confirmed that OT&E participants followed the documented testing procedures and noted necessary corrections. Members of the committee informally discussed reactions to AWIPS with OT&E participants at all visited sites. The committee also reviewed the results of the system evaluation and services evaluation surveys from the first weeks of OT&E, as well as documented-problem reports and action reports in response to problems. Committee members also observed operations at the NCF. On this basis, the committee presents the following preliminary findings and recommendations pertaining to the OT&E for Build 1 within the overall plan for AWIPS deployment.

Finding 1. The OT&E process observed at these operational sites was well structured and in accordance with the documented plans. Based on the committee 's view of what an incremental build process should accomplish (described in Background section), the OT&E process is appropriate for the introduction of AWIPS.

Finding 2. Installation of AWIPS equipment was well planned and executed and caused minimal interference with ongoing operations at the WFOs and RFCs.

Finding 3. In general, training for WFO applications was well received by site personnel. Survey responses indicate that the training for RFC hydrology applications was less effective, however, because the system was not yet configured for specific geographical areas.

Finding 4. Site installation and configuration depended on the use of numerous “scripts.”⁴ Resolving problems caused by the incorrect or inconsistent application of the scripts required extensive interaction between the NCF and site personnel. It appeared to the committee that the scripts themselves and the required manual inputs had not been subject to appropriate configuration management and that the application of particular scripts was not well controlled.

Finding 5. Reactions of site personnel to the AWIPS satellite and next generation weather radar (NEXRAD) displays were positive. The display quality of radar and satellite images is much improved over the image displays of previously available operational systems.

Finding 6. The OT&E disclosed that AWIPS Build 1 software responds slowly and inconsistently to requests for model-data displays and image displays. The slow response contrasts with the rapid response by WFO-Advanced, which runs on the same hardware and displays the same imagery and model data.