Weather Forecasting

This report focuses on the National Weather Service's (NWS) Advanced Weather Interactive Processing System, which is designed to help local weather forecasters obtain meteorological data from state-of-the-art weather observing systems and national weather models, analyze trends, and disseminate forecasts and warnings to the public. This $525 million system is to be the centerpiece of NWS' massive $4.5 billion modernization and restructuring program. GAO discusses whether NWS' process for developing the system has shown that all proposed system capabilities will contribute to promised modernization outcomes--better forecasts, fewer weather offices, and reduced staffing. GAO summarized this report in testimony before Congress; see: Weather Forecasting: New Processing System Faces Uncertainties and Risks, by Jack L. Brock, Jr., Director of Information Resources Management Issues, before the Subcommittee on Energy and the Environment, House Committee on Science. GAO/T-AIMD-96-47, Feb. 29 (six pages).

GAO found that NWS: (1) needs to replace the outdated systems that its field offices use and has developed 22,000 AWIPS requirements to support 450 capabilities to achieve its mission of improving forecasts and reducing staffing levels and the number of weather offices; (2) may be spending money unnecessarily on capabilities that do not contribute to its mission, since it has not justified whether proposed improvements to AWIPS are necessary to advance its mission efficiently and effectively; and (3) is developing a process to ensure that AWIPS requirements are not duplicative or obsolete, but the process does not trace all planned capabilities to stated mission improvement goals.

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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