FX-NET: Integrating Air Chemistry and Weather Data For Research and Operations

Abstract

Transitioning research algorithms and systems to operations is a painstaking, incremental, process, at best, and at worst, a major operational disruption. As the amount of data and applications waiting to be delivered to the operational community continues to grow, the ability to test and evaluate new products and applications falls behind. In order to bridge this gap between R&D and operational systems, a test system that mirrors the operational database, adds the experimental data, and provides quasioperational access to that data should be utilized. Having been used as an operational field system by NWS Incident Meteorologists (IMETS), Bureau of Land Management (BLM) fire weather meteorologists and state and local air quality forecasters, as well as by the air chemistry and university research community, the FX-Net system is a proven bridge. FX-Net is a weather forecasting workstation that provides access to operational NOAAPort data using an Internet connection. NOAA’s Forecast Systems Laboratory has been developing this system since 1997. Previous versions of the workstation (Madine, et al, 2002) have provided a solid, operational system that continues to expand with new tools and data sets. This most recent version of FX-Net leverages the latest AWIPS server developments to deliver a full suite of National Weather Service data. FX-Net file server and client software automatically updates client menus when specialized data sets are added to the data servers.