Editor's Note: Metropolitan State University of Denver (MSU) is one of a handful of universities of varying sizes that have incorporated AWIPS II into labs and classrooms in the past two years. MSU's experience shows that incorporating the new NWS technology into the educational mix is both possible and useful even for a small undergraduate program. This article outlines the MSU AWIPS II configuration and discusses some of the adjustments the program made to get the system running smoothly.
Thanks to a Unidata Community Equipment Award grant coupled with some local resources from our university, we (Professor Sam Ng and co-PI Chris Kimmett) at Metropolitan State University in Denver have been able to successfully bring the National Weather Service's AWIPS II forecasting system into the classroom. Professor Ng used AWIPS II alongside Unidata's Integrated Data Viewer as core tools in the Spring 2015 “Weather Analysis Techniques” course for undergraduate meteorology majors, and will continue using AWIPS II in the Fall semester and into the future.
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