Collaborative Convective Forecast Product (CCFP) Evolution in Support of the Collaborative Aviation Weather Statement

To support the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Air Traffic Control System Command Center (ATCSCC) routine strategic planning teleconferences, the Collaborative Decision Making (CDM) community has developed an event-driven, collaborated text and graphic forecast called an Aviation Weather Statement (AWS). The AWS is similar in scope to Mesoscale Discussions the National Weather Service (NWS) Storm Prediction Center (SPC) issues to the public communicating the potential of severe weather. The specific goal of the AWS is to provide Air Traffic Management (ATM) decision makers with timely delivery of high-confidence, high-relevance aviation weather constraint forecasts for the enroute and terminal domains. In order for the NWS to facilitate both collaboration and production of the AWS, the existing forecaster-developed CCFP will change to an automated forecast with the same look and feel to be used during the ATCSCC strategic planning teleconferences. The automated CCFP blends input from several high-resolution numerical weather prediction models as well as the Short-range Ensemble Forecast (SREF). Image processing techniques are used to smooth the blended numerical forecast output into polygons resembling what the human forecaster would create. The end result is a forecast consistent with guidance preferred within the ATCSCC for convective decision making. The automated CCFP is available every two hours, 24 hours per day, year-round instead of the current 20 hours per day, seasonally. The methodology of the automated CCFP and its usage within the context of the AWS will be presented.