development teams. As a result, NWS risks unnecessarily spending money on AWIPS capabilities that do not satisfy any of its mission improvement goals—better forecasts, fewer field offices, and fewer staff. However, this translation did not, nor was it intended to, link requirements or capabilities to mission improvements. However, whether all of the 450 capabilities it plans for AWIPS are necessary to accomplish this is unknown because the process it has followed in developing AWIPS, while providing for traceability between proposed system capabilities and user expressed needs, does not include validating that these capabilities explicitly and measurably advance NWS’ mission efficiency and effectiveness, which NWS has defined in terms of improved forecasts, fewer field offices, and reduced staffing levels. Rather, we are saying that NWS is spending hundreds of millions of dollars without knowing whether all AWIPS capabilities will contribute to its stated reasons for investing in the system (improving forecasts and reducing field offices and staffing levels). In particular, we reviewed analyses of AWIPS’ prototyping efforts, memoranda from the 1992 rebaselining of the AWIPS requirements, the System/Segment Specification for the National Weather Service Advanced Weather Interactive Processing System, and the Requirements Traceability Document for the AWIPS Hydrometeorological Computer Software Configuration Item.
Why GAO Did This Study

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the National Weather Service's (NWS) Advanced Weather Interactive Processing System (AWIPS), focusing on whether the proposed AWIPS capabilities will improve weather forecasts and reduce staffing levels and the number of weather offices.

What GAO Found

GAO found that NWS: (1) needs to replace the outdated systems that its field offices use and has developed 22,000 AWIPS requirements to support 450 capabilities to achieve its mission of improving forecasts and reducing staffing levels and the number of weather offices; (2) may be spending money unnecessarily on capabilities that do not contribute to its mission, since it has not justified whether proposed improvements to AWIPS are necessary to advance its mission efficiently and effectively; and (3) is developing a process to ensure that AWIPS requirements are not duplicative or obsolete, but the process does not trace all planned capabilities to stated mission improvement goals.