U.S. Transition Plan to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) Meteorological Information Exchange Model (IWXXM)

The bilateral exchange of IWXXM-based information was introduced to ICAO Annex 3 in November 2013, enabling States (countries) to exchange their operational meteorological (OPMET) data not only in TAC (Traditional Alphanumeric Code) form but also in extensible markup language (XML) and more precisely geography markup language (GML). This represents the start of a significant change from the provision and exchange of textual OPMET data towards a digital environment supporting System Wide Information Management (SWIM).

The current use of OPMET in TAC format presents an obstacle to the digital use of data as it is not geo-referenced. This makes the handling of global data difficult to use correctly and expensive to maintain. IWXXM represents the first step toward an environment where the systems handling this data can make more use of standard applications and techniques.

This paper will present the timelines, processes, and challenges associated with the US’s efforts to move toward a more efficient method of data exchange.