Abstract: The Graphical Forecast Editor (GFE) is the grid editing component of the Interactive Forecast Preparation System (IFPS), which allows meteorologists to define weather forecasts in a digital database. Since forecasters are required to adjust and monitor literally millions of forecast points per forecast shift over the seven-day forecast period, the capability to automatically generate high-quality text from the digital data is an essential part of the system.
This talk will describe the philosophy and algorithms used to generate text from digital data using a tree-like data structure and multiple-pass processing. The open-ended, adaptable architecture enables weather forecasters from varying terrains and climatic conditions to customize the resulting text.