Enhanced Onset & Cessation Information of Adverse Ceiling and Visibility Conditions to Improve Decision Making

Low ceilings and poor visibility can significantly disrupt efficient flight planning within the National Airspace System (NAS), highlighting the crucial need for precise and accurate forecasts. Given the high impact and rapid changes associated with these hazards, Traffic Flow Managers (TFM) and airport operators require timely updates and intuitive visualization tools to make strategic operational decisions. In partnership with the FAA's Aviation Weather Research Program (AWRP), the Meteorological Development Laboratory (MDL), and the FAA’s Aviation Weather Demonstration and Evaluation (AWDE) Services, the Aviation Weather Center (AWC) created a web-based dashboard that depicts the the onset and cessation times of low ceilings and reduced visibility restrictions at the Core 30 airports to assist with decision making.

Experimental LAMP bulletins, produced by MDL, were utilized to develop a dashboard that depicts the onset and cessation times of changes in flight categories due to adverse ceiling and visibility (C&V) conditions at the Core 29 airports, and includes forecasts for the San Mateo Bridge (SMB). The bulletins provide forecast information at 15 minute intervals for the first 6 hours, and hourly intervals out to 36 hours. This information is visually represented within the dashboard to allow for quick interpretation and utilization by the user.

AWC developers worked closely with AWDE, a team of social scientists with human factors expertise, to develop the dashboard in a user-intuitive format which can be embedded into the AviationWeather.gov website. Once the dashboard was completed and available experimentally for use, the AWDE team performed a targeted evaluation of its utility with TFM decision makers. This presentation will provide an overview of the dashboard development process and preliminary results of the user evaluation.

*This research is in response to requirements and funding by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). The views expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official policy or position of the FAA.