National Weather Service Data Needs for Short-Term Forecasts and the Role of Unmanned Aircraft in Filling the Gap: Results from a Nationwide Survey

The unmanned aircraft system is a versatile platform for the collection of a broad suite of observations that could fill data gaps for short-term forecasting. Focus groups and interviews conducted by the authors have illustrated the potential value for UAS in filling some of these gaps. This prior work has informed the development of a survey that will be distributed nationally to National Weather Service forecasters. The primary aim of this survey is to prioritize data gaps that need to be filled. With this prioritization, the role that UAS can play in a theoretical modernized weather surveillance network can be examined. In particular, analysis will consider the types of UAS operations that need to be conducted (e.g., fixed-site profiling vs. targeted surveillance, shallow vs. deep sampling) as well as the required on-board instrumentation. Preliminary results from the survey will be presented at the conference.