National Weather Service United States Department of Commerce

1. Introduction

-Objective

The intent of this project is to establish methods to transfer information between WFO and RFC WFO Hydrometeorological Forecast System (WHFS) databases.

-Need

The WHFS databases exist at both WFOs and RFCs. Identical hydrologic stations, and supporting elements that together uniquely identify each site, exist in multiple offices' databases. NWS offices routinely add, delete, or modify these elements daily. Communication of these changes to all interested offices is essential to ensure they are consistently propagated through the system. Inconsistent entries can lead to confusion, and damage each office's capabilities to provide adequate hydrologic products and services.

- Benefits

If an NWS office can be made aware of changes occurring at another NWS office, all affected offices will know to address inconsistencies in the system. Thus they can begin to take positive steps to ensure that identical station definitions at each office is updated in a reasonable time frame.





2. Significant Activity Descriptions

Task Completion Date
1. Identify WHFS database components where consistency is required. Mar. 2002
2. Determine which office (i.e., the RFC or the WFO) is responsible for each specific dataset. Mar. 2002
3. Determine best means to communicate changes to other offices. Apr. 2002
4. Determine how the updated components themselves will be transferred to other offices. Apr. 2002
5. Research COTS software that feature functionalities similar to those needed to support the stated objective (Paragraph 2); analyze software's suitability to accomplish the objective. May 2002
6. Develop software to accomplish tasks 3 and 4. June 2002
7. Test the developed software at the 4 SR RFCs, plus a designated WFO in each RFC area. July 2002
8. Develop software that will change incorporate information received from remote site, and automatically update database on command. Sept. 2002
9. Test the concept and test the procedure in two-way data exchanges between WGRFC and WFO FWD. Nov. 2002
10. Compilation and Publication of Results Dec. 2002


3. Deliverables

-Software to:

(1) communicate database changes to affected offices;
(2) transfer updated database components to affected offices;
(3) successfully execute needed changes at WFO and RFC databases.

4. Project Life

- This project is expected to take 9 to 12 months to complete.