The Advanced Weather Interactive Processing System, A Critical Review

The Advanced Weather Interactive Processing System, A Critical Review

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The Advanced Weather Interactive Processing System, or AWIPS logo. Image courtesy, http://www.weather.gov/.

The Advanced Weather Interactive Processing System, or AWIPS is an operating system, (OS) for a computer like the Windows series. Though this is not a public operating system. AWIPS was designed by the government for the National Weather Service. AWIPS has all of the capabilities of the National Weather Service, and makes most of what a local Weather Forecast Office (WFO) possible. There are many great advantages of AWIPS. Such as the overlaying of many data streams from many weather models, radar, and sattelite data from the Geostationary Operational Environmental Sattelites (GOES). There is also access to make every forecast made by the WFO and upper-air skew-t maps. Though these programs make AWIPS the best meteorological system ever designed in my opinion, there are drawbacks. AWIPS cannot display its data in a three-dimensional environment. There is also no access to model skew-t charts, which makes the Bufkit program that I have mentioned in pressure-gradient windstorms necesssary for the National Weather Service. Though AWIPS is still the standard today, there is another model of AWIPS being released from the government. The Aply named, AWIPS 2! Hopefully it will improve on what the original AWIPS has already started.

An upper-air map from the North American Model or NAM. Images such as these are easily available and understandable to forecasters with AWIPS. Image Courtesy: www. weatherunderground.com

The Personal Profile List

The Personal Profile List

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There are many people I would do a personal profile about, here are a few: Family: Mother Father Grandmothers Aunts Uncles and a Plethora of Cousins Schoolmates: Everett Harlan Sarah Barbagli Ethan Parker Ryan Splain Ian Walters and More. Other Friends: Neil Dixon Vince Dicarlo All of these people are great to do a personal profile about, though some I cannot do as much observation as required for the style. Though one of these people I can write about, since he has told me many stores. Everett Harlan: One of my schoolmates and friends. He has been at my school since middle school. We met this year since my original high school shut down and combined with another to form a new campus. He has told me many stories about his life and some are reminiscent of the cable television program Eureka. I think he is a very interesting person to profile and many themes can be learned from an essay about him

Expository Atmospheric Science

Expository Atmospheric Science

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There are many personal essay topic in the atmospheric sciences that can be written about; here are a few.: Weather Events Observation Techniques Technology Advancements Debates The Scientific Method New Discoveries

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Though the one topic I am going to write about is going to be a personal essay. The one that would fit the guidelines of that literary outline is a weather event that happened on May 14th, 2006.

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The Sketch for "The May 14th Supercell.":

As the day wore on, the energy of the sky became almost explosive. During the year of 2006, which was a record year of severe thunderstorm warnings for our area, I beheld the first supercell, or tornadic thunderstorm, I had seen in real life. This vigorous system brought with it large hail and tornado in Cabarrus County. The storm was the first tornadic system in a long time to reach my home and I captured many images of that storm. One of the rarest images was that of "the green sky effect" which hail in the core of the supercell bends light filtering in through the roiling clouds. I also saw a mesocyclone, the rotating updraft of the supercell that gives birth to its strong tornadoes. Though no tornado peered through my house, the mesocyclone made its presence known, and I caught an image of it as well. One of the supercell's most astonding features was it's movement. The storm moved so fast it seemed that it was a film in a sped-up movie reel.
One of pleasent side-effects of that storm was the no one was hurt in it of course. Though the supercell did drop a tornado to my east. One of my images from that day were used in a National Weather Service report on that event. It still remains on their website to this day. The supercell was infomative and exiting. That event helped me forward to better meteorological understanding.

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The "green sky effect" that occured on 5/14/2006. This is the sky coloration that is usually reported before tornado touchdowns and or hail events. This image is a rare image and is hard to find, if it even exists elsewhere.

Image by: Justin Reid 5/14/2006