Day 1 of the 2019 AWT Summer Experiment

The 2019 AWT Summer Experiment kicked off on Monday with a full house of collaborators and stakeholders from multiple entities of the aviation weather enterprise. Participants include developers from NOAA’s Earth System Research Lab (ESRL), NWS’s Meteorological Development Lab (MDL), and NCEP’s Environmental Modeling Center (EMC); meteorologists from each NWS region including Alaska and Hawaii, Deutscher Wetterdienst (German weather agency), and Southwest Airlines; as well as stakeholders from NWS headquarters, the US Air Force 557th Weather Wing and the FAA’s Aviation Weather Research Program (AWRP).

There are three major themes that will be explored throughout the week. The first is an evaluation of new features and capabilities in the Graphical Forecasts for Aviation (GFA) and Helicopter Emergency Medical Services (HEMS) web tools.

The Graphical Forecasts for Aviation (GFA) was recently expanded operationally to include the western Atlantic, Gulf of Mexico, and Caribbean Sea in order to give end-users graphical alternatives to the current text-based Area Forecasts still issued for that region. The AWT is also demonstrating additional geographical expansions over much of the Pacific, including Hawaii, and north into Alaska where user feedback will be critical. AWC will be updating the gridded ceiling and visibility (C&V) analysis in the HEMS tool this coming spring and is seeking user feedback on this, as well as some other potential updates to the tool, during the week long experiment.

In addition to the meteorologists and developers on hand to evaluate these updated web tools, pilots will be attending the AWT in person and remotely to provide feedback to human factors experts from the FAA Aviation Weather Demonstration and Evaluation (AWDE) services group. This feedback is critical to ensuring AWC's products continue to evolve to meet the needs of the users most dependent on them.

The second area of focus for the week will be evaluating new cloud layer guidance derived from numerical model 3-D cloud information. Participants will be given the task to create a forecast for cloud evolution over an area with expected aviation impacts. They will have various visualization tools to use in order to examine the 3D cloud information including a point-and-click TAF capability and a point to point cloud cross section viewer. The goal is to have an evaluation of the guidance itself to better tailor post-processing and tooling, as well as how 3D cloud information can be used to improve aviation forecasts in the future.

Finally, AWT participants will be looking at potential extended-range convective guidance products. National traffic planning is increasingly looking at the next day and beyond to better get ahead of potential impacts before they start affecting the NAS, and determining the best path forward in how to present this information to all stakeholders involved is critical.

Stay tuned for updates throughout the week and early findings from each desk!