Forecasters at the Aviation Weather Center (AWC) are responsible for predicting in-flight meteorological conditions for the contiguous United States as well as for much of the rest of the world. Forecasters and support meteorologists are constantly seeking new analysis and forecast techniques which can potentially be used in the forecast process to improve the accuracy of AWC products. The sources of these new techniques include the FAA-funded Aviation Weather Research Program (AWRP) Product Development Teams, Department of Defense aviation forecast agencies, foreign centers of aviation weather forecasting, and the meteorologists and computer scientists at the AWC.

There are two programs which guide the technology transfer process at the AWC. The first is an external process, the Aviation Weather Technology Transfer (AWTT) process, a joint partnership between the FAA Aviation Weather Directorate and the National Weather Service (NWS), which guides the development, testing, and transition of new aviation hazards detection and forecast products into operational use for dissemination to the user community from the AWC. The National Convective Weather Forecast product was the first new technology to successfully pass through the AWTT process and into AWC and NWS operations in September 2001. AWRP-sponsored research towards the development of icing, turbulence, and ceiling/visibility products are currently at various stages of transition through the AWTT process. While some of these products are being developed for transmission to end users such as pilots, dispatchers, and flight service station weather briefers, the AWC also incorporates the output from these new techniques into daily operations by making the products available to aviation meteorologists who integrate the products into the daily forecast preparation process on forecaster workstations.

The second technology transfer program is designed for internal AWC use and mimics the stringent AWTT reporting, technical review, and implementation approval processes. The AWC Technique Implementation Directive (TID) is designed to encourage AWC meteorologists to develop new forecast techniques and seek out potentially useful scientific results from sources outside the AWC for test and evaluation. Approval for developing, testing and verifying new science and technology is based on documented AWC forecaster need and is designed to complement the work being done through the AWRP's AWTT process, not to compete with it. Thus, new technologies transitioned into AWC daily operations may indeed be suitable for submission to the AWTT process for potential approval and operational implementation by end users (meteorologists, pilots, dispatchers, briefers, etc.) outside the AWC.

This paper will present overviews of both the AWTT and AWC technology transfer processes, describe new products advancing through both processes, and show examples of how these products will be integrated into daily AWC forecast operations.