The EMWIN System is sponsored by the National Weather Service to provide accurate and up to date weather information to emergency managers throughout the United States. The EMWIN data stream consists of text and graphics distributed by the National Weather Service using a satellite distribution system. There are several vendors who provide satellite receiving equipment, and several vendors who provide software for the decoding and display of the EMWIN data.

The wide spread use of the EMWIN data has been somewhat prohibited by the costs associated with the software and hardware. In an effort to provide the greater use of the EMWIN data, the OpenEMWIN project has been created. It is hoped that this project will provide the framework necessary for the continued use, and wider distribution, of this invaluable weather information.

The OpenEMWIN project has several goals:

• To provide an open source EMWIN decoder
• To design and define an internet based protocol and distribution mechanism for the EMWIN data
• To build EMWIN data clients that interoperate with the current EMWIN decoders and display programs

Initially, the project is providing the decoder and a basic distribution system. The decoder runs on Unix, and is in use by various organizations. The distribution system allows for internet connections to receive the data, but is limited. It is hoped that a standard protocol, with authentication and compression, be developed to limit the bandwidth requirements needed to send the complete data stream.

There is also a perl script to handle the decoded EMWIN files.

The project is hosted by SourceForge, an open source project service that provides the tools needed for project collaboration using the internet.