Development of Regional Hazardous Weather Advisories

The responsibility to provide in-flight weather advisories resides with the State-recognized Meteorological Watch Office (MWO). The skill level and resources vary greatly across the globe. Airlines depend on these MWOs for the provision of SIGMET for both tactical and strategic planning as well as Air Traffic Management. The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), as part of their responsibility, provides oversight on the capability of States to meet the agreed international standards and works with WMO to ensure forecasters are qualified to provide this essential service. ICAO has observed that there is a deficiency in service in selected ICAO Regions in States to meet the obligations as agreed to in the provision of SIGMET. The continuation of these deficiencies is deemed unacceptable. At the 2014 ICAO/WMO Meteorological (MET) Divisional Meeting, recognition was given to the Meteorological Warnings Study Group which worked to resolve the longstanding issue of SIGMET information deficiencies by some ICAO States, mainly in Africa and Southeast Asia. The meeting reviewed the proposed concept of operations as well as cost recovery plans and agreed that the proposal for a new regional advisory system for select hazardous weather conditions, and in selected regions of the world, be pursued. As an outcome of the 2014 MET Divisional Meeting, an ICAO expert group, along with the WMO, will develop provisions supporting the implementation of a phenomenon-based regional advisory system that is consistent with the Global Air Navigation Plan (GANP). Implementation involves a broad range of tasks, such as integrating the information into System-Wide Information Management (SWIM) systems, developing guidance material for users, and fitting the new product into users' requirements. There are a number of challenges involved in such a task, both technical and not technical. The Non-technical issues such as governance and cost recovery needed to be resolved before any implementation of Regional Hazardous Advisory Centers are established. This paper will review the work at hand on how to resolve this problem and the pathway forward in support of weather integration into ATM and Flight Planning Systems.