AWIPS 10-Year Forecast:
Partnership, Responsibility, Innovation

The Advanced Weather Interactive Processing System (AWIPS) is the system used by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration/National Weather Service (NOAA/NWS) to analyze and disseminate operational weather data, including time-sensitive, high-impact warnings.

Raytheon has been NOAA's partner for the operations, maintenance and evolution of AWIPS since 2005, providing the integrated mission services required to sustain and enhance system performance. AWIPS plays a critical role in the ability of U.S. forecasters to make weather predictions that can save lives and safeguard property. Its complex network of systems ingests and integrates meteorological, hydrological, satellite and radar data. It also processes and distributes the data to and among 140+ NWS forecast offices and environmental centers nationwide. Forecasters in the field utilize the capabilities of AWIPS to make increasingly accurate weather, water and climate predictions, and to dispense rapid, highly reliable warnings and advisories.

The Raytheon AWIPS Team provides hardware, software and communication services to the entire AWIPS network, including NWS Weather Forecast Offices, River Forecast Centers, regional headquarters and Environmental Prediction Centers dispersed across the United States and its territories. Core areas of support include:

• 24/7 AWIPS network operations, monitoring and control. Responsibility for this support resides within our Network Control Facility/AWIPS Operations Center, which operates from NWS headquarters. 
• Satellite communications, including operation of the AWIPS Satellite Broadcast Network.
• Software maintenance, integration and test. This includes management of major releases as well as maintenance and emergency releases. 
• Hardware maintenance and logistics, semi-annual preventive maintenance for all sites, and security patch management. 

The Raytheon AWIPS team has also executed numerous sustaining engineering, product improvement, and technology refresh projects. These include site relocations as well as hardware replacements that are designed to increase system responsiveness, avoid obsolescence, enhance security and reduce system reliability risks. We are also engineering the multi-year evolution of AWIPS to its future state—AWIPS II—with the first release slated for mid-2009.

Key Customer Benefits

• Raytheon manages the operations, maintenance and evolution of AWIPS, leading an experienced, reliable team of large and small businesses that support NOAA/NWS initiatives and strategic efforts.
• Our “Voice of the Forecaster” program makes it easy for forecasters and technologists in weather and environmental centers across the nation to participate in AWIPS improvement initiatives. We provide forums for sharing information, ideas and insights, solicit feedback, and encourage forecasters’ direct participation in software testing.
• Raytheon’s Service Level Management Process defines a life cycle of continuous improvement grounded in open communication. It ensures that we respond quickly to changes in NOAA/NWS’s scientific, technology, and business goals for AWIPS.
• We developed and are currently implementing the AWIPS Software Product Improvement Plan and the services oriented software re-architecture that will form the basis of the next-generation system—AWIPS II.

Careers

View our current employment opportunities at Raytheon’s Job Search site.

• Select Experienced Professional.
• Enter "AWIPS" in Keyword Search.

Contact Us

Raytheon Information Solutions
8401 Colesville Road, Suite 800
Silver Spring, MD 20910
301.495.2200
awips@raytheon.com