Transcribed Weather Broadcast (TWEB) route forecasts are generated and disseminated by the National Weather Service (NWS) to provide information about weather that would be of significance to pilots along a specified route. Valid for a 12 hour period, forecasters at NWS offices across the United States prepare forecasts of significant clouds, obstructions to surface visibility and weather. As part of the NWS modernization, it is possible the generation of the TWEB route forecasts could become the responsibility of the Aviation Weather Center (AWC) in Kansas City, MO. That would mean generation of TWEB forecasts on a national scale. Although all of the information needed to generate these forecasts is readily available at the AWC, the human resources to generate these forecasts are not. Therefore, an automated means of generating the forecasts was investigated.
The AWC was invited to participate in a modernization project called PRE-Modernization and Associated Restructuring Demonstration (PRE-MARD). A first generation automated TWEB product was developed for this project and implemented operationally in the Spring of 1998. At the onset, 14 TWEB route forecasts were generated automatically for valid periods that coincided with the operational TWEB route forecasts being prepared by the forecast offices. The automated TWEB forecasts were evaluated by forecasters participating in PRE-MARD. At the request of forecasters, 3 additional routes were added for evaluation. Except for small formatting errors, the operational implementation was a success. As expected, however, the quality of the automated forecast needs improvement.
A description of the product and comments from forecasters in the field will be given. Some comments referred to already known shortcomings in the product, while the remaining comments helped mold future plans to improve the quality of the product.
The 8th Conference on Aviation, Range, and Aerospace Meteorology