The impact of thunderstorm growth and decay on air traffic management in class B airspace
Summary
Air traffic management is a challenging task, especially if the airspace involved is impacted by inclement weather. The high volume of air traffic which inundates the nation's major airports compounds the difficulties with which Air Traffic Control (ATC) specialists have to cope. When you add the unpredictability of thunderstorm growth and decay to the controllers workload, air traffic management becomes even more of a challenge. ATC specialists would benefit from reliable forecasts of thunderstorm growth and decay. To determine how they would use a Growth and Decay product, ATC specialists from the Memphis Air Route Traffic Control Center (ARTCC), Traffic Management Unit (TMU), and TRACON supervisors were interviewed while viewing five movie loops of Memphis weather cases. The movies consisted of the ASR-9 six-level reflectivity data, aircraft beacons, and storm motion vectors.