A Sensitivity Analysis of Road Condition Forecasting

Road weather forecasting is a difficult and complex process, dependent on accurate calculations of atmospheric and road conditions, precipitation state and amount and road evolution.  A critical component is the impact of road surface treatment, which generally has limited real-time information available and is constantly evolving over the duration of a weather event.  A sensitivity analysis of road freezing temperature is being presented to show this impact.  Using the Global Weather Corp. (GWC) RoadWx forecast, it is possible to quantify the potential errors in road condition nowcasts and forecasts of real winter weather events due to errors in treatment impact assumptions and atmospheric condition initialization.  Multiple time sequences from the same weather events will be presented to demonstrate this error.