How to add a TAF to AvnFPS without actually sending it out of the office?
This question is usually asked by a WFO when there is a new TAF to be issued by the office in the next few months and the forecasters want to practice monitoring and issuing forecasts for the new site well before the actual day arrives to officially issue them to the outside world. AvnFPS doesn’t actually perform the actions to disseminate your aviation forecasts to the NWS WAN or the NWWS. That’s the job of handleOUP.pl: a script that AvnFPS transmission server invokes when it wants to issue products found in its pending queue. The handleOUP.pl script consults several files to determine: 1) Proper WMO identifier for the product; 2) whether the product should be sent on the NWWS; 3) and whether the product should be sent on the WAN. Another action handleOUP.pl script performs is to store the product into the local text database. Your Aviation focal point or ITO should use the AvnFPS configuration GUIs to create the required configuration files for the new product.
