Aviation Weather Center Evolution of Services for the General Aviation Community

The National Weather Service (NWS) Aviation Weather Center (AWC) provides products and services to ensure safe and efficient travel by all aviators from the commercial airline operations down to the smallest local operator with a particular focus on the needs of General Aviation. In order to continue to be a leader in the field and help resolve unmet needs in the GA community, AWC is developing new products and greater support services to enable better decision making by the community.

AWC’s Aviation Weather Testbed (AWT) demonstrated and evaluated multiple new products in the past year to better fulfill these unmet needs. Key Aviation Messages and decision support graphics would provide greater flexibility in highlighting important ongoing conditions and provide detailed information for special events such as the increased air traffic during the recent total solar eclipse. Outlook graphics would greatly increase the temporal range of forecasts, providing multi-day guidance of aviation hazards. New concepts for increased collaboration across the NWS would enable greater consistency and better overall services and connection to the aviation weather enterprise.

This presentation will highlight ongoing work by AWC to develop these new concepts and push them closer toward operational implementation.