Weather is essentially geo-spatial data that can be integrated with Geographic Information Systems (GIS). In this research a small prototype is designed and developed in order to demonstrate the basic capabilities of GIS-enabled operational meteorology. As the Air Force moves to net-centric operations, enabling weather information across an enterprise GIS is essential. Providing images is a fast and efficient means of enabling weather in a GIS. Providing the information in raw format is a better way to distribute GIS enabled weather. Since operators and users may still require an image format, both information and images should be provided. In order to provide the best possible support, Air Force Weather needs to rethink how it provides weather information, especially in a net-centric force. Air Force Weather has been slow to adopt this approach for various reasons such as a lack of bandwidth. The lack of resolution and accuracy of the numerical models was also a key consideration. While the models are still imperfect, their spatial resolution is now good enough to be used realistically in a GIS environment. The prototype developed for this research shows real-time delivery of weather information in GIS is possible and practical.
http://archive.org/details/prototypedevelop109452954
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