NOAA National Weather Service Weather Forecast Office

Using Computers is Critical to our Operations

Our staff includes highly trained scientists and technicians who use computer technology to record, monitor, and disseminate weather information to our users. Our scientific staff consists of 13 meteorologists, 5 hydro-meteorological technicians (HMTs), a service hydrologist, and a meteorologist intern. Our support staff includes 3 electronics technicians, an information technology specialist, and an administrative assistant.

All NWS forecast offices use a computer system called AWIPS to complete local duties. AWIPS stands for "Advanced Weather Information Processing System". The system was installed in our office around 1999 and is linked with NWS offices nationwide via the Network Control Facility (NCF) in Silver Spring, Maryland. AWIPS is a graphical based network of computers that contains several specific programs and algorithms to display, interrogate, create, and distribute weather data.

To issue a weather forecast our meteorologists review data and graphics generated by a handful of different computer models. These models are created on supercomputers at a government facility in Camp Springs, Maryland using current weather data gathered by automated weather equipment at the ground and by weather balloons that gather data at many different levels of the atmosphere. These data sources will be discussed in detail later in the tour. After the model review is complete, our meteorologists draw maps of what they believe the future weather conditions will be hour by hour out to 7 days in the future. Click next below to see some examples of these data maps.