What to expect

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In the past the entire NWSRFS ran in mainframe/minicomputer environments, using command oriented text input to control the system computations.
As computationally powerful and graphically sophisticated scientific workstations became available, NWS recognized that a graphically based, interactive environment would enhance the accuracy and timeliness of NWS river and flood forecasts.
Consequently, the operational forecasting portion of the NWSRFS was ported to run on a system of networked scientific workstations.

Thus, the NWSRFS Interactive Forecast Program (IFP) was developed to provide a graphical user interface to allow the forecaster to control NWSRFS program flow and to make adjustments to forecasts as necessary.