Now that the Automated Weather Observing System (AWOS) has been in operation for over 9 months, the accumulated data set is of sufficient duration to enable the types of analyses that will help with future mission planning. Technical staff members have been working on efficient means to organize and archive the data, and to perform a wide range of analyses. Often, the most basic requirement is simply to plot the data, but with a meteorological station that records 31 different parameters once per minute, 44,640 separate data items are accumulated each day. Even to plot a single parameter for a time interval of several months requires extensive processing. Spreadsheet programs generally are not suitable for analyzing large data sets. We have been testing low-cost, off-the-shelf database products to determine which will best satisfy our requirements.
NMSA has begun planning for a series of tabletop exercises to test and to guide development of our operational plans. The table top exercise approach has become a standard tool especially in emergency management. It is a low cost method in that actual physical resources do not need to be deployed to gain considerable insight into effectiveness of plans and ways to improve them. We expect to use the methodology not only in emergency management, but also to test and train with other operational and even maintenance plans. One of the reasons that the exercises are valuable is that they can include personnel from multiple groups and disciplines that often bring valuable knowledge and experience to the table that might not otherwise be incorporated.
