Creating An Aviation "Centre Of Expertise"

In late 1997, Environment Canada's Prairie and Northern Region decided to re-organize its weather service program along a "centre of expertise" model. All aviation forecast services were consolidated in Edmonton, along with forecasting responsibility for the Canadian Arctic. The Prairie Aviation and Arctic Weather Centre (PAAWC) produces aviation forecasts for the three prairie provinces, the Northwest Territories, and Nunavut (just over 50% of Canada by area), and it looks after 1/3 of the aerodrome forecasts (TAFs).

This "new" centre and structure has created both opportunities and challenges. It has allowed a focus on meeting the needs of a large client, NAV CANADA, which is a private, not-for-profit corporation responsible for the Air Navigation System (ANS) in Canada, including aviation weather services. Goals of the PAAWC include improving the quality of the weather services and to work on establishing better working relationship with NAV CANADA and other aviation users. It has implemented several ideas along these lines: restructured its operations, developed innovative tools to monitor the weather better and streamline forecast production, increased client contact, and done aviation-specific technique development.

Recently, significant effort has gone into the new graphical area forecast (GFA) product and investigating ways to improve the quality (both accuracy and utility) of its aviation forecasts. This last item is important and a big challenge, considering the tremendous spatial and temporal variability in the weather parameters that are most critical to aviation operations (e.g., ceiling, visibility, wind, icing, and turbulence), and the varied needs of the aviation community. The PAAWC also has started using performance measurement data and feedback from clients to improve its services.

This talk will cover some of the work that has been done in the PAAWC, and review the benefits (and drawbacks) of the "centre of excellence" approach, as seen through the PAAWC's eyes.