Guidance on Optimally Presenting Probabilistic Ceiling and Visibility Forecasts for the Aviation Community

Determining an optimal presentation method for a forecast product is vital to ensuring the product is usable and effective. In partnership with the FAA’s Aviation Weather Research Program, the Aviation Weather Center (AWC) is currently working toward creating an improved national probabilistic ceiling and visibility (C&V) forecast. In order to effectively present this valuable information to the aviation community, AWC is collaborating with the FAA’s Aviation Weather Demonstration and Evaluation (AWDE) Services Team to determine the end-user’s perspective and preference for display and information requirements in a C&V forecast to better aid in decision making.

The FAA’s AWDE Services Team conducted several C&V focus group sessions with aviation users to assess the C&V product. During the focus group sessions, different solutions were presented displaying the probabilities of common flight rules, using the High Resolution Ensemble Forecast (HREF) source data. The results of these sessions provide valuable feedback to AWC going forward with the next C&V forecast product design iteration. Robust user feedback ensures the product is usable and provides sufficient decision support. The next phase of the evaluation is part of the Aviation Weather Testbed (AWT) annual Summer Experiment, planned for August 7th-18th, 2017. During the experiment, AWDE will evaluate user responses to the C&V product versions in real time and gather operationally-oriented feedback from the participants. Highlights from these evaluations will be presented.

Disclaimer: This research is in response to requirements and funding by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). The views expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official policy or position of the FAA.