The Next Generation (NextGen) Air Transportation System requires all aviation-relevant weather observations and forecast information with resolutions tailored to various decision maker needs--from flow contingency managers to local controllers and individual pilots. Common situational awareness for decision makers using a consistent, continuously updated set of weather information within a 4 dimensional cube is a key theme found in the NextGen Concept of Operations. It is envisioned that four nested scales (airport, regional, continental, and global) with probabilistic attributes will support this 4D cube concept. The NextGen Weather Concept of Operations states that the 4D capability results from the “merger of automated gridded products, models, climatology, and human forecasters” [emphasis added]. In addition, the Next Gen Research and Development Plan calls for applied research on the potential roles of human forecasters in applying their operational expertise to augment highly automated and rapidly updated 4-D weather grids. To that end, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administrations Aviation Weather Program is funding developmental work to investigate how the human will interact with the 4D weather cube.

This talk will focus on work ongoing to determine where, when, and how the human forecaster can add value to the automated forecast processes that exist for convection, icing, turbulence, and low ceiling and visibilities and that are envisioned to support the 4D cube required for NextGen.