Improving Weather Support to Traffic Flow Management – An Update

The National Weather Service (NWS) and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) share interrelated and complementary missions. The FAA's mission includes safe and efficient aviation operations in our nation's skies, while the NWS's mission includes aviation weather support for the FAA. The FAA and the NWS established a joint Traffic Flow Management Weather Requirements Working Group (TRWG) in 2010 to meet three objectives to: baseline current NWS weather support capability, develop firm performance-based requirements for near-term services to Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen) Mid-term Operating Capability (MOC), and develop a plan to implement solutions meeting those requirements.

Implementation activity included development of new verification tools to assess NWS products and services with respect to the new TFM performance measures. This paper will present an overview of the verification methodologies and initial results providing an accuracy assessment of current product capability to forecast onset and cessation of categorical ceiling height and visibility, significant wind shifts, and thunderstorm events at major airports.

As work continues on improving weather support to the FAA, the TRWG has been tasked to expand the scope of this effort beyond Traffic Flow Management to all aspects of NWS aviation weather services. This paper will provide an overview of the expanded effort to baseline and document requirements for NWS aviation weather products and services.