Technology
The WSR-88D Doppler weather radar system, also called NEXRAD, was developed by the NWS during the mid 1980s and fully deployed by the end of the 1990s. There are 158 such radar sites in the United States and selected overseas locations. This technology, because of its high resolution and ability to detect intra-cloud motions, is now the cornerstone of NWS severe weather warning operations.
NWS meteorologists use an advanced information processing, display, and telecommunications system called AWIPS to complete their work. These workstations allow them to easily view a multitude of weather and hydrologic information, as well as compose and disseminate products.
The NWS Environmental Modeling Center was one of the early users of the ESMF common modeling infrastructure. The GFS system is one of the applications that is built on the framework.
Read more about this topic: National Weather Service
Famous quotes containing the word technology:
“If we had a reliable way to label our toys good and bad, it would be easy to regulate technology wisely. But we can rarely see far enough ahead to know which road leads to damnation. Whoever concerns himself with big technology, either to push it forward or to stop it, is gambling in human lives.”
—Freeman Dyson (b. 1923)
“The real accomplishment of modern science and technology consists in taking ordinary men, informing them narrowly and deeply and then, through appropriate organization, arranging to have their knowledge combined with that of other specialized but equally ordinary men. This dispenses with the need for genius. The resulting performance, though less inspiring, is far more predictable.”
—John Kenneth Galbraith (b. 1908)
“If the technology cannot shoulder the entire burden of strategic change, it nevertheless can set into motion a series of dynamics that present an important challenge to imperative control and the industrial division of labor. The more blurred the distinction between what workers know and what managers know, the more fragile and pointless any traditional relationships of domination and subordination between them will become.”
—Shoshana Zuboff (b. 1951)