International collaboration: Providing seamless, cross-border aviation weather products to facilitate traffic management

Weather, like aeroplanes, does not stop at the border. In fact, weather, or more precisely intense convective weather, is often the cause of planes that would normally fly west to east across the United States, being re-routed across the Canada/US border, up over Canadian airspace. To mitigate the impact of intense convection on air traffic, and ensure an effective and efficient use of airspace, NAV CANADA and the Meteorological Service of Canada (MSC) have joined the FAA, US National Weather Service, MIT Lincoln Lab, and Industry to produce seamless, cross-border aviation-weather products. Two initiatives, the Collaborative Convective Forecast Product (CCFP) and the Corridor Integrated Weather System (CIWS), will be discussed in terms of international collaboration with emphasis placed on examples that demonstrate the contribution of Canadian forecasts and weather information to the to effective/efficient use of airspace. Future plans for the CCFP over Canada will also be addressed.