88th Annual Meeting (20-24 January 2008)

Monday, 21 January 2008: 4:30 PM
Weather and Radar Processor (WARP) products for en-route controller displays
226-227 (Ernest N. Morial Convention Center)
James G. Stobie, ENSCO, Inc., Falls Church, VA; and A. Moosakhanian, J. Johnson, P. Jackson, and W. N. Brown
Poster PDF (1005.4 kB)
En-route air traffic controllers have had WARP products on their situation displays since 2002. The products include four layered composite reflectivity (CR) NEXRAD mosaics. These mosaics are not like those typically found on the Internet, but are tailored to the controllers' special operational requirements. In this presentation we will describe these special mosaics and their recent enhancements. We will also explore other potential improvements to reduce latency, increase coverage, and reduce noise. A special lightning mosaic will likely be the next product to appear on the controller situation displays. Another possible enhancement is a special selectable layer scheme that will allow the controllers to select only the data within their sector. One of the drawbacks to the current NEXRAD layers is they do not always match the controllers' sector altitudes. Also, three of the layer products have less horizontal coverage than the full CR product. The selectable layers scheme would eliminate these problems. Another potential scheme would be to combine lighting, CR, the new digital VIL, and enhanced echo tops into a single product, in a manner similar to the National Convective Weather Forecast. In this presentation, we will explore the pros and cons of each of the current and potential products.

Supplementary URL: