Application and Assessment of the Aviation Weather Center's Aviation Winter Weather Dashboard

During the winter of 2011-2012, NWS/NCEP's Aviation Weather Center (AWC) developed the Aviation Winter Weather Dashboard (AWWD). The AWWD was designed to provide automated guidance on winter weather at the U.S. Core-30 airports (with the exception of Honolulu). Its development was accomplished through a partnership with the FAA's Collaborative Decision Making - Weather Evaluation Team (CDM-WET).

The AWWD is driven using output from NCEP's Short-Range Ensemble Forecast (SREF) system. The SREF-predicted winter weather variables include snow, freezing rain, and visibility (representing blowing snow). The output from the SREF is used without any additional post-processing such as bias correction or calibration. Forecast elements are provided every 3 hours through all 87 forecast hours and updated with each 6-hourly SREF run cycle. The dashboard displays hazards using a multi-colored matrix to display the intensity of the SREF predicted threat, with red being a significant hazard to aircraft operations and green a prediction of no impact. The hazard thresholds were developed through collaboration with CDM-WET and vary depending on the climatological winter normals at the various airports.

This paper will discuss the production of the AWWD, provide an assessment of its usefulness over the 2011-2012 winter season, introduce upgrades implemented for 2012-2013, and present a preliminary quantitative verification of its performance.