The National Weather Service Aviation Weather Center (AWC) is responsible for issuing forecasts and warnings of weather hazards of interest to the aviation community. Forecasts include turbulence, icing, and low visibility conditions and may be issued as Airmen's Meteorological Advisories (AIRMETs) and convective and non-convective Significant Weather Advisories (SIGMETs). Convective SIGMET forecasts are of particular importance during the summer convective season.
Through funds provided by the Federal Aviation Administration Weather Research Program, the Forecast Systems Laboratory is developing a Real-Time Verification System (RTVS). This system provides an easy-to-use approach for tracking the quality of forecast products. One example is the verification of the AWC convective SIGMET outlook. SIGMET outlooks are issued hourly and are valid from two to six hours into the future and represent areas where convective SIGMETs are likely to be issued. Statistics are generated each hour by evaluating whether convective SIGMETs valid during the outlook period fall inside or outside of the outlook boundaries. In this paper, we describe the methods used to verify the AWC convective SIGMET outlooks and present verification results for the 1998 convective season
The 8th Conference on Aviation, Range, and Aerospace Meteorology