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FAA tactical weather forecasting in the United States National Airspace

Published in:
World Weather Research Program Symp. on Nowcasting and Very Short Term Forecasts, 5-9 September 2005.

Summary

This paper describes the Tactical 0-2 hour Convective Weather Forecast (CWF) algorithm developed by the MIT LL for the FAA. We will address the algorithm and focus on the key scientific developments. Future directions will also be discussed.
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Summary

This paper describes the Tactical 0-2 hour Convective Weather Forecast (CWF) algorithm developed by the MIT LL for the FAA. We will address the algorithm and focus on the key scientific developments. Future directions will also be discussed.

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Tactical 0-2 hour convective weather forecasts for FAA

Published in:
11th Conf. on Aviation, Range and Aerospace Meteorology, 4-8 October 2004.

Summary

Major airlines and FAA Traffic Flow Managers alike would prefer to plan their flight routes around convective weather and thereby avoid the tactical maneuvering that results when unforecasted thunderstorms occur. Strategic planning takes place daily and 2-6 hr forecasts are utilized, but these early plans remain unaltered in only the most predictable of convective weather scenarios. More typically, the ATC System Command Center and the Air Route Traffic Control Centers together with airline dispatchers will help flights to utilize jet routes that remain available within regions of convection, or facilitate major reroutes around convection, according to the available "playbook" routes. For this tactical routing in the presence of convective weather to work, both a precise and timely shared picture of current weather is required as well as an accurate, reliable short term (0-2 hr) forecast. This is crucial to containing the system-wide and airport-specific delays that are so prevalent in the summer months (Figure 1), especially as traffic demands approach full capacity at the pacing airports. This paper describes the Tactical 0-2 hr Convective Weather Forecast (CWF) algorithm developed by the MIT Lincoln Laboratory for the FAA, principally sponsored by the Aviation Weather Research Program (AWRP). This CWF technology is currently being utilized in both the Integrated Terminal Weather System (ITWS; Wolfson et al., 2004) and the Corridor Integrated Weather System (CIWS; Evans et al., 2004) proof-of-concept demonstrations. Some of this technology is also being utilized in the National Convective Weather Forecast from the Aviation Weather Center (Megenhardt, 2004), the NCAR Autonowcaster (Saxen et al., 2004), and in various private-vendor forecast systems.
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Summary

Major airlines and FAA Traffic Flow Managers alike would prefer to plan their flight routes around convective weather and thereby avoid the tactical maneuvering that results when unforecasted thunderstorms occur. Strategic planning takes place daily and 2-6 hr forecasts are utilized, but these early plans remain unaltered in only the...

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An automated, operational two hour convective weather forecast for the Corridor Integrated Weather

Published in:
10th Conf. on Aviation, Range and Aerospace Meteorology, 13-16 May 2002, pp. 116-119.

Summary

The FAA Aviation Weather Research Program (AWRP) is an initiative of the Weather and Flight Service Systems Integrated Product Team, AUA400. One of the goals of the AWRP is to create accurate and accessible forecasts of hazardous weather tailored to the needs of the aviation community. Pursuant to this goal, the AWRP has sponsored the collaboration of the Research Applications Program (RAP) of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), the Aviation and Forecast Research Divisions at the NOAA Forecast Systems Laboratory (FSL), the Weather Sensing Group of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Lincoln Laboratory (MIT/LL) and the National Severe Storm Laboratory (NSSL) on a Product Development Team (PDT). This Convective Weather PDT is developing an automated system that combines real-time weather- radar data with the current "state-of-the-art" convective weather prediction algorithms to produce forecasts of convective weather for the heavily traveled air traffic routes in the Great Lakes/Northeast corridor (Chicago to New York). This Regional Convective Weather Forecast (RCWF) will be provided to traffic flow management decision-makers as part of the proof-of-concept Corridor Integrated Weather System (CIWS), which began operations in July 2001 with a l-hr animated Regional Convective Weather Forecast (RCWF).
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Summary

The FAA Aviation Weather Research Program (AWRP) is an initiative of the Weather and Flight Service Systems Integrated Product Team, AUA400. One of the goals of the AWRP is to create accurate and accessible forecasts of hazardous weather tailored to the needs of the aviation community. Pursuant to this goal...

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Forecasting convective weather using multi-scale detectors and weather Classification - enhancements to the MIT Lincoln Laboratory Terminal Weather Forecast

Published in:
10th Conf. on Aviation, Range, and Aerospace Meteorology, 13-16 May 2002, pp. 132-135.

Summary

Over the past decade the United States has seen drastic increases in air traffic delays resulting in enormous economic loses. Analysis shows that more then 50% of air traffic delays are due to convective weather. In response the FAA has assembled scientific and engineering teams from MIT Lincoln Laboratory, NCAR. NSSL, FSL and several universities to develop convective weather forecast systems to aid air traffic managers in delay reduction. A user-needs study conducted by Lincoln Laboratory identified that a major source of air traffic delay was due to line thunderstorms (Forman et al., 1999). Recognizing that the line storm envelope motion was distinct from the local cell motion was the impetus for developing the Growth and Decay Storm Tracker' (Wolfson et al., 1999). The algorithm produces forecasts by extracting large-scale features from two dimensional precipitation images. These images are tracked, using either correlation techniques (Terminal Convective Weather Forecast or TCWF) or centroid techniques (National Convective Weather Forecast or NCWF). In TCWF, the track vector field is used to advect the current precipitation images formed to produce a series of forecasts into minute increments up to 60 minutes. The TCWF forecasts are highly skilled for large scale persistent line storms. However, detailed performance analysis of the algorithm has shown that in cases dominated by airmass storms, the algorithm occasionally performed poorly (Theriault et al., 2001). In this paper we describe the sources of error discovered in the TCWF algorithm during the Memphis 2000 performance evaluation, and describe recent enhancements designed to address these problems.
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Summary

Over the past decade the United States has seen drastic increases in air traffic delays resulting in enormous economic loses. Analysis shows that more then 50% of air traffic delays are due to convective weather. In response the FAA has assembled scientific and engineering teams from MIT Lincoln Laboratory, NCAR...

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TCWF algorithm assessment - Memphis 2000

Summary

This report describes a formal Assessment of the Terminal Convective Weather Forecast (TCWF) algorithm, developed under the FAA Aviation Weather Research Program by MIT Lincoln Laboratory as part of the Convective Weather Product Development Team (PDT). TCWF is proposed as a Pre-Planned Product Improvement (P3I) enhancement to the operational ITWS currently scheduled for deployment at major airports in 2002. The TCWF Assessment in Memphis, TN ran from 24 March to 30 September 2000. The performance of TCWF was excellent on the large scale, organized storm systems it was designed to predict, and the software was extremely stable during the Assessment. Small changes to the algorithm parameters were made as a result of the 2000 testing. The TCWF performance can be improved on airmass storms and on forecasting new growth and subsequent decay of large-scale storms. These are active areas of research for future ITWS P3I builds.
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Summary

This report describes a formal Assessment of the Terminal Convective Weather Forecast (TCWF) algorithm, developed under the FAA Aviation Weather Research Program by MIT Lincoln Laboratory as part of the Convective Weather Product Development Team (PDT). TCWF is proposed as a Pre-Planned Product Improvement (P3I) enhancement to the operational ITWS...

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FAA terminal convective weather forcast algorithm assessment

Published in:
Ninth Conf. on Aviation, Range, and Aerospace Meteorology, 11-15 September 2000, pp. 365-370.

Summary

Air traffic delay due to convective weather reached historically high levels in 1999, as passengers blamed airlines and airlines blamed the FAA for the massive inconveniences. While coordination between the FAA's System Command Center and the regional centers and terminals can be expected to improve with the FAA's new initiatives, it is clear that air traffic management and planning during convective weather will ultimately require accurate convective weather forecasts. In addition to improving system capacity and reducing delay, convective forecasts can help provide safer flight routes as well. The crash of a commercial airliner at Little Rock, AR in June 1999 after a one-hour flight from Dallas/Ft. Worth illustrates the dangers and potential tactical advantage that could be gained with frequently updated one-hour forecasts of convective storms. The Terminal Convective Weather Forecast (TCWF) product has been developed by MIT Lincoln Laboratory as part of the FAA Aviation Weather' Research Convective Weather Product Development Team (PDT). Lincoln began by consulting with air traffic personnel and commercial airline dispatchers to determine the needs of aviation users (Forman, et. al., 1999). Users indicated that convective weather, particularly line storms, caused the most consistent problems for managing air traffic. The "Growth and Decay Storm Tracker" developed by Wolfson et al. (1999) allows the generation of up to 1-hour forecasts of large scale, organized precipitation features with operationally useful accuracy. This patented technology. represents a breakthrough in short-term forecasting capability, providing quantitative envelope tracking as opposed to the usual cell tracking. This tracking technology is now being utilized in NCAR's AutoNowcaster (Mueller, et al., 2000), the National Convective Weather Forecast running at the Aviation Weather Center (Megenhardt, et al., 2000) and by private sector meteorological data vendors. The TCWF has been tested in Dallas/Ft. Worth (DFW) since 1998, in Orlando (MCO) since 1999, and in New York (NYC) since fiscal year 2000 began. These have been informal demonstrations, with the FAA William J. Hughes Technical Center (WJHTC) assessing utility to the users, and with MIT LL modifying the system based on user feedback and performance analyses. TCWF has undergone major revisions, and the latest build has now been deployed at all sites. The TCWF is now in a formal assessment phase at the Memphis international Airport as a prerequisite to an FAA operational requirement. The FAA Technical Center will make a recommendation on whether TCWF is suitable for inclusion in the FAA's operational integrated Terminal Weather System (ITWS), which has an unmet requirement for 30+ minute forecasts of convective weather. Memphis was selected for the TCWF Assessment since it has not been exposed to the forecast product during prior demonstrations. Operations began on March 24, 2000 and operational feedback is being assessed by the FAA Technical Center (McGettigan, et al., 2000) and MCR Corporation is performing a quantitative benefits assessment (Sunderlin and Paull, 2000). This paper details the refined TCWF algorithm and display concept, gives examples of the operational impact of terminal forecasts, and analyzes the technical performance of the TCWF during the early stages of the Memphis Assessment.
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Summary

Air traffic delay due to convective weather reached historically high levels in 1999, as passengers blamed airlines and airlines blamed the FAA for the massive inconveniences. While coordination between the FAA's System Command Center and the regional centers and terminals can be expected to improve with the FAA's new initiatives...

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