An overview of the design and implementation of the FAA national ceiling and visibility decision support system

The Aviation Weather Research Program of the FAA has funded the development of a national ceiling and visibility decision support system covering the continental United States and Alaska. The current system ingests data from a variety of data sources including METAR, GOES, RUC and MOS data. Analysis and forecast subsystems subsequently utilize the input data in order to generate gridded ceiling, visibility and flight category products covering the domains of interest. A verification subsystem assesses the ongoing performance of the forecast subsystem.

This paper presents an overview of the design and implementation of the current system from an engineering point of view. It addresses the steps involved in creating the analysis and forecast products as well as the steps involved in assessing forecast performance. Both algorithmic and technical design issues will be discussed.