This paper describes a locally-implemented McIDAS-type system, namely the Australian Region McIDAS (ARM). The ARM system was commissioned in the Bureau of Meteorology Research Centre in September 198 and installed in the National Meteorological Centre in July 1986. It provides real-time access to a very extensive historical and real-time meteorological data base. The system also provides an extensive number of application programs to enable use to be made of the data base for research and forecasting tasks. The paper includes details of the hardware, software, data base and key applications software which form the system. It illustrates the utility of the system for performing research and operational tasks in the Australian region. It notes the planned future developments and concludes that improved efficiency in both operational and research meteorology can be expected from implementation of the system.
Marshall et al. (Mon,) studied this question.