Weather Decision Technologies (WDT) and Raytheon Corporation (Raytheon) have entered into an agreement that will allow commercial and international users of WDT applications to benefit from the latest Raytheon technology developments in weather data processing. The licensing agreement will provide WDT with the most recent software updates deployed for the National Weather Service, and the companies will jointly develop customization of applications to plug into the latest baseline. Using the back-end framework created by Raytheon and used by NOAA and Air Force weather, WDT commercial and international customers will benefit from state of the art technologies underpinning their future automated weather prediction products and services.
The underlying technology developed by Raytheon is considered the industry standard for weather data processing, and the latest software upgrades help U.S. government customers increasingly improve the usable weather data available to forecasters. Until reaching the agreement with Raytheon, WDT had used the software code made publicly available by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) as part of the AWIPS program in its predictive weather products. As prime contractor to the AWIPS program, Raytheon will push updates of the code it develops for AWIPS to WDT so that customers reap the benefits of a consistent baseline for their predictive weather applications.
“This agreement broadens the user base of international and commercial customers employing a consistent baseline for their predictive weather needs,” said Bill Sullivan, Director of Earth and Space Observing Solutions at Raytheon’s Intelligence, Information and Services unit. “Raytheon’s software acts as the brains of the operation when it comes to making sense of weather data, and with each update the software is smarter and better. The back end of weather data is not something most people think about as much the forecast itself. Through our AWIPS program with NOAA’s National Weather Service and our Air Force weather programs, Raytheon’s technologies have become the de facto industry standard for environmental intelligence processing.”
“Our focus at WDT has been to provide the predictive weather decision support tools to our customers, whether they be sovereign nations or international corporations, and the use of the Raytheon established baseline as the backend to those tools provides a unique competitive advantage,” said Michael Eilts, President and Chief Executive Officer of WDT. “The ability for a commercial or international customer to have the industry standard for weather data processing intrinsically linked to the application they utilize is a unique benefit for interoperability and assured quality of the data.”
As Raytheon updates software and provides those updates to WDT, customers are assured that their weather applications and service are operating on the most consistent, efficient, and recent technology available. Additionally, Raytheon is assisting WDT in establishing an in-house development environment on which to run its weather product and service applications. The companies will jointly own customization of the technology for commercial and international customers.
About Weather Decision Technologies, Inc. (WDT)
Weather Decision Technologies, Inc. is the industry leader, providing organizations with weather decision support on a global scale. WDT offers specific expertise with big data as it applies to hazardous weather detection and prediction, forecast modeling, decision analytics, GIS, mobile apps and interactive mapping. WDT employs the world-renowned WeatherOps forecast team, staffed by experts who provide global asset protection and commodities trading decision support. WDT maintains operational offices in Norman, Oklahoma and Houston, Texas. For more information visit http://wdtinc.com.
About Raytheon
Raytheon Company, with 2013 sales of $24 billion and 63,000 employees worldwide, is a technology and innovation leader specializing in defense, security and civil markets throughout the world. With a history of innovation spanning 92 years, Raytheon provides state-of-the-art electronics, mission systems integration and other capabilities in the areas of sensing; effects; and command, control, communications and intelligence systems, as well as cyber security and a broad range of mission support services. Raytheon is headquartered in Waltham, Mass. For more about Raytheon, visit us at www.raytheon.com and follow us on Twitter @Raytheon.