An FAA Terminal Area Icing Research Update

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Terminal Area Icing Weather Information for NextGen (TAIWIN) project is developing a terminal area-based diagnostic and forecast icing capability to support safe flight operations in the terminal area and at low altitudes. The terminal area is currently defined as a 30 nautical mile radius around an airport, from the surface up to 12,000 feet above ground level. The capability calculates the likelihood of small drop, freezing drizzle, and freezing rain environments in a three-dimensional gridded field across the terminal area. It independently identifies each icing environment through assessing surface observations, radar, satellite, and numerical weather forecast model information. This approach allows multiple icing environments to be reported concurrently within the capability’s output, as is observed in nature, to more accurately represent the meteorological environment. Output from the capability can be viewed in its native gridded format or in a simplified format that identifies the predominant icing environment for each terminal area. The capability updates every fifteen minutes (with the model updating hourly) and produces output for every fifteen minutes from current time to one hour in the future, every 30 minutes from forecast hour one to two, and every 60 minutes for forecast hours two through twelve. Many aspects of the capability can be adjusted or modified to meet alternative user needs, including the terminal area shape, size, and definition, as well as frequency of output, timesteps, output categories, etc. While the project is working to evaluate and update the upstream and downstream components of the rapidly developed initial version of the algorithm, exploration into other aviation applications is also being pursued. The status of these TAIWIN efforts, as well as an outlook on future applications of the capability, will be presented.