Weather support to aviation's Golden Triangle

The Northeast U.S. has the most congested airspace in the country and often operates at capacity in clear weather, so weather events introduce flight delays that can affect the entire National Airspace System. In fact, thunderstorms in 2009 produced several days in which significant delays rippled across the country, with approximately 80,000 weather-related delays associated with the major New York airports alone. In response, the National Weather Service (NWS) Eastern Region initiated a demonstration with the New York Weather Forecast Office and the Center Weather Service Unit to provide focused weather support to Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Air Traffic Managers for those airports. Increased frequency of terminal forecasts showed improved forecast accuracy for low ceiling and visibility by 20 percent and wind direction by nearly 15 percent. With those promising results, NWS expanded the project into the Golden Triangle Pilot to focus on the area encompassing the major airports in New York, Atlanta, and Chicago.

This paper expands on results previously released from the Golden Triangle Pilot with statistical summaries and anecdotal information.