Thunderstorms assemble almost every known hazard to aviation in one place. Lightning, turbulence, hail, rain, icing, and poor visibility require that airspace users provide a wide margin of separation between these phenomena and aircraft operations. In addition to safety, the great variation in thunderstorm size and duration can create huge airspace capacity and flight operations effects.
This paper describes an on-going program that provides graphical information over the continental United States regarding the current and forecast locations of thunderstorms. An experimental system designed and implemented at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) Research Applications Program (RAP) ran between June 1 and Sept. 30, 1998 and provided current storm locations (detection) and 1-hour extrapolation forecast. The detection field was based on: (1) lightning from Global Inc. via Kavourous; and (2) WSR-88D VIL and Tops National Radar Mosaics provided by WSI. The data were available to dispatch offices at Delta, Northwest, and several communter airlines as well as the National Weather Service (NWS) Aviation Weather Center. During the 1998 summer demonstration, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Technical Center (ACT-320) worked with the airline dispatch offices to monitor their decision making processes to evaluate the utility of and potential enhancements to the forecast products. In addition to a description of the National Convective Weather Forecast Product, this paper provides a preliminary product evaluation, report of aviation user feedback, and outline of future plans.
The 8th Conference on Aviation, Range, and Aerospace Meteorology