FX-Net and Fire WeatherUser's Manual
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FX-Net and Education
FX-Net at Plymouth State College
Background: In the last several years, the National Weather Service has upgraded their field system to a new system called AWIPS. Ideally, students preparing for careers in operational meteorology would have the opportunity to work with the actual technology they will find in weather offices. A joint project between NOAA's Earth System Research Laboratory Global Systems Division (GSD) and Plymouth State College had the goal of developing and testing this concept. The system used - FX-Net, was designed for this purpose.
Use of FX-Net at Plymouth State: Many of the ideas for using FX-Net in an educational setting came from Dr. James Koermer, Professor of Meteorology at PSC. A Forecast Laboratory has been established at PSC using the GSD developments. This laboratory has classroom space with large screen presentation capabilities and 15 forecast workstations for student use. The initial use of FX-Net has proven to be an important step forward in the teaching of meteorology students. Many new features continue to be added to FX-Net as a result of its use in the Plymouth State Meteorology Program.
Technical Features: FX-Net products can be categorized into four groups: satellite data, observation data, radar imagery, and model graphics and imagery. Many of the products available to NWS forecasters are provided by FX-Net. Although designed primarily for Internet use, FX-Net will also accommodate local network, dial-up, and dedicated line use. The FX-Net system consists of a UNIX Server and PC client workstations. FX-Net client requests are sent via the Internet to the FX-Net server which responds by sending the requested products to the client.
Wavelet transform techniques are used to compress model and satellite imagery, allowing the rapid delivery of display products via the Internet. To further minimize processing time, all satellite products are pre-generated and compressed on the FX-Net server.