Exploring Variants of the Experimental Collaborative Decision Making (CDM) Convective Forecast Planning (CCFP) Guidance

The experimental Collaborative Decision Making (CDM) Convective Forecast Planning (CCFP) guidance is a graphical representation of forecast convection meeting specific criteria of coverage, intensity, radar echo height, and confidence. The experimental CCFP guidance graphics are produced every 2 hours and valid at 2-, 4-, 6-, and 8-hours after issuance time. The purpose of the experimental CCFP guidance is to aid in the reduction of air traffic delays, reroutes, and cancellations related to significant convective events that impact en-route air traffic. The intended purpose of the product is to serve as a starting point for convective planning at the Air Traffic Control System Command Center (ATCSCC), with more specific convective information around high impact traffic areas being addressed by the new Collaborative Aviation Weather Statement (CAWS). Overall, the experimental CCFP was engineered to have the same look and feel as the previously produced forecaster-generated Collaborative Convective Forecast Product and be generated from model forecasts, resulting in a product that will be available throughout the whole year. The primary experimental CCFP guidance is automatically produced from a blend of the NOAA Short Range Ensemble Forecast (SREF), three time-lagged High Resolution Rapid Refresh (HRRR) forecasts, and the HIRES ARW model. This version is being used along with the CAWS in an operational demonstration period that began in spring 2015. After initial feedback during the early season in 2015, additional parallel versions of the experimental CCFP were created for evaluation purposes. These variants included a version solely based on SREF guidance, similar to the Extended Convective Forecast Product (ECFP) and a version where one of the HRRR members was replaced with the high-resolution NAM-Nest. These variants were evaluated during the 2015 Aviation Weather Testbed Summer Experiment by participants located at the Aviation Weather Center and the FAA William J. Hughes Technical Center. The comparison of the variants will be explored herein.