Innovative Verification Methodologies for Aviation Forecasts: Developing Insightful Feedback for Forecasters & Decision Makers

The Weather Company (TWC) has developed comprehensive verification methodologies for aviation forecast products in collaboration with our airline partners. An ongoing, monthly verification assessment focuses on two key convective forecast products issued by TWC: Gate Convective Forecasts (GCFs) and Terminal Aerodrome Forecasts (TAFs). The GCF verification evaluates forecasts for major hubs, assessing the accuracy of forecast convective coverage within forecaster-defined arrival and/or departure gates. For TAFs, TWC has developed a comparative verification system that includes both TWC and National Weather Service (NWS) forecasts, enabling insights into relative performance.

This verification framework generates both human and machine-readable outputs delivered on a daily basis, facilitating communication of forecast performance to airline leadership and analytics teams, as well as feedback to TWC forecasters, for both Irregular Operations (IROPs) and non-IROPs situations at various hubs. These daily verification sheets are the foundation of a monthly analysis, which can provide hub-level and gate-level insights. For example, we can quantify relative convective risk and lead time dependencies for various convective scenarios, which can aid decision making within an airlines’ operations center ahead of convective weather. The results of this monthly analysis are shared on a regular basis with TWC forecasters, fostering a culture of continuous learning and improvement. This transparent approach helps to maintain and build trust with our airline partners, demonstrating our commitment to improving our forecast content. As we accumulate data, we plan to expand our metrics to provide deeper insights into forecast strengths, weaknesses, and improvement opportunities.