Weather Forecasting

To improve its weather forecasting, the National Weather Service (NWS), part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), is spending an estimated $4.6 billion to modernize its observational, information processing, and communications systems. The centerpiece of this effort is the Advanced Weather Interactive Processing System (AWIPS)--an information network that will analyze and display data received from radars and satellites, NWS field offices, and other sources. The tab for AWIPS is pegged at about $467 million. This briefing report (1) determines how effectively NOAA has analyzed and defined its system requirements, (2) identifies key risks associated with the AWIPS acquisition, and (3) determines whether any identified risks were severe enough to warrant delaying the scheduled award of the AWIPS contract in late 1992.

GAO found that: (1) NOAA effectively involved users in analysis and definition of AWIPS requirements; (2) a diverse cross section of NWS users defined AWIPS baseline and functional requirements; (3) NOAA has continued to refine AWIPS functional and interface requirements and faces significant risks, since the roles and responsibilities of the contractor and government are not clear; (4) other risks include a lack of specific system portability requirements, security requirement definitions, and a configuration management plan; and (5) failure to resolve each risk before AWIPS software development begins could cause cost increases, schedule delays, and performance problems.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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