The Developmental Testbed Center (DTC) is a distributed facility where the NWP community can test and evaluate new models and techniques for use in research and operations.

The DTC serves as a bridge between research and operations to facilitate the activities of both halves of the NWP Community in pursuit of their own objectives:

• Research community gets a functionally similar operational environment to test and evaluate new NWP methods in retrospective extended period tests using advanced tools
• Operational community benefits from DTC testing and evaluation of strengths and weaknesses of new NWP advances prior to consideration for operational implementation

DTC's Goals Are To:

• Link Research and Operational Communities
• Speed transition of research results into operations
• Accelerate improvement in weather forecasts
• Develop and test promising new NWP techniques
• Provide an opportunity for NWP community to perform cycled or real-time tests of model and data assimilation systems