Under the sponsorship of the Federal Aviation Administration, work was begun in the early 1990's at the National Center for Atmospheric Research to develop and deploy an in situ turbulence measurement and reporting system for commercial aircraft. The concept was to use existing sensors, avionics and communication networks to produce and disseminate a state-of-the-atmosphere turbulence metric – the eddy dissipation rate (EDR). Currently, there are 99 B757 United Airlines aircraft providing approximately 1.3 million reports per month. In 2007-08, 71 B737s from Delta Airlines, and 271 B737 aircraft from Southwest Airlines will be brought online. Furthermore, work with Northwest Airlines and American Airlines will begin in 2008. These new deployments represent a major leap forward for the program.

The EDR data from these aircraft will be used in the next version of the operational Graphical Turbulence Guidance (GTG) forecast product, GTG2. This will become operational in 2008. Two new products are under development that will also use the turbulence reports: the Convectively-Induced Turbulence (CIT) algorithm and a nowcast version of the GTG forecast product - GTGN.

This paper will provide an update on the abovementioned activities, including implementation and verification status, as well as discussing the uses of the turbulence reports.