Taking a look at how AWC forecasters can provide decision support to the GA community

Aviation Weather Center has continuously received feedback from their pilot partners that they would like to have an easy to interpret, quick glance graphic that gives them an idea of what hazards to expect in the coming days. Testbed participants are tasked with developing sample graphics for both a “Key Aviation Message”, similar to the Key Messages developed by local forecast offices, and Days 2 and 3 outlooks for aviation hazards.

Participants looking at various data products to develop outlook graphics

The goal of the Key Aviation Message is to communicate an impactful weather event occurring in the NAS that may cause general aviation (GA) pilots the need to alter their flight plans. These decision support graphics are intended to be sent out a couple times a day, for this experiment specifically testing once in the morning for the day of events, and a separate graphic in the afternoon or evening covering a major area of concern for the following day. A big aim for our participants this week is to help hone in on what information is important to share with pilots and how we can help local weather forecast offices (WFO) share aviation hazards. Participants reiterated the importance of using plain language and focusing on our GA pilot audience for flight levels and impacts. A couple other ideas participants noted were the importance of including a valid time or next issuance update time, and using local time vs zulu. The WFO participants mentioned sharing the graphics on their social media, in addition to AWC social media, if their area is impacted to help reach a larger audience!

Sample Key Aviation Message outlining icing conditions in the Pacific Northwest

One of the most repeated requests from GA pilots is for a longer term outlook at what the weather may look like in the next couple days. AWT has taken a look at outlook graphics which cover the day 2 and 3 time frames in the past and have come up with some questions about how to show this larger temporal resolution graphic, identifying what aviation hazard criteria must be met in order to be included, and how to provide this quick glance first look. This experiment, our participants created three separate graphics to show these hazards out to day 2. The day 2 (next day) outlook was divided into a morning and afternoon/evening forecast, and day 3 covered the entirety of the daytime flying.

Sample Day 2 PM Outlook graphic drawn by participants and overlaid with fronts

Guidance was provided for criteria which must be met for each aviation hazard, based on standards for GA pilots. As participants drew their outlooks, internal discussions covered the importance of having two separate day 2 graphics and how useful this additional outlook will be for GA pilots looking to plan out in the next couple days. Some ideas for AWT to further investigate include the possibility of adding text information, constraints of layer colors or outlines, or additional toggles when they are displayed on the website. As we continue to solidify how these outlooks may look, the next big step will be to get the graphic in front of users to really assess the intuitiveness and utility of the product for its intended users!

Enhancing collaboration between AWC and Core partners

There is a growing emphasis on improved collaboration and communication regarding anticipated aviation hazards to ensure a uniform aviation forecast across the National Weather Service (NWS). Participants at the AWT Spring Experiment are navigating what this collaboration may look like as a new forecast desk, National Aviation Operations Center (NAOC), within the operations at AWC.

Throughout the week, participants are simulating some of the tasks that may be done by an AWC lead forecaster at the NAOC desk and providing feedback based on the utility of the collaboration for their own operations. One major task for the forecasters is to develop and conduct a mock national collaboration call targeted for internal NWS aviation forecasters to ensure we are drawing the same picture regarding weather impacts to the NAS. Utilizing a new “briefing tool” on the testbed website, our participants collected the information they thought would be most useful for our CWSU partners and presented a mock call. Participants discussed the timing of these calls and how they might affect our partners differently from mornings on the east coast in the swing of things to the west coast still waking up.

AWC lead forecaster Joey Welsh working on creating a collaboration call briefing package

Participants are also exploring how AWC might create a decision support graphic depicting the “Key Aviation Message” of the day. This graphic is aimed towards providing general aviation pilots a targeted picture of major impacts within the NAS. While exploring different tools to create a graphic, the participants spent time honing in on what they considered the most major impact and how to relay this information to the GA community.

Day 5: Afternoon Transportation Briefing

The forecaster for today's collaborative briefing with HPC decided to break up the briefing into hazard and again show the separate valid times.  The forecast period was 00Z Feb 16 - 00Z Feb 17.  The three hazard graphics are shown below.

This will be the last collaborative briefing with HPC, since their Winter Experiment ends today.

IFR Forecast for 00Z Feb 16 - 00Z Feb 17.

Turbulence Forecast for 00Z Feb 16 - 00Z Feb 17.

Icing Forecast for 00Z Feb 16 - 00Z Feb 17.

Communicating Impact

An important part of producing a forecast for the public is communicating the impacts that the weather will have.  As part of the HPC afternoon transportation briefing, the impact graphics produced by HPC and AWC forecasters is critiqued by human factors researchers.  They provide feedback on how well the graphics communicated impacts important to emergency managers and air traffic decision makers.

One of the pieces of feedback offered by these communication experts on yesterday's graphic was that when multiple regions of Instrument Flight Rules (IFR) were depicted, it was somewhat difficult to tell which side of the red line was supposed to be IFR.  This was especially the case when these regions were close to each other.  The first image below is the original briefing graphic, where the "IFR" label was placed on the side of the red contours where IFR was expected.  Adding a shading to the appropriate side of the contour reduced confusion and provides higher "glance value" and communicated this information more quickly.

Original briefing graphic.

Updated briefing graphic with shading indicating regions where IFR was forecast.

Day 4: Afternoon Transportation Briefing

As was the case the past two days, we presented an afternoon transportation briefing in collaboration with HPC.  The focus was a Day 2 forecast, valid 00Z Feb 16th - 00Z Feb 17th.  The AWC was again responsible for forecasting the aviation threats of icing, turbulence, and IFR conditions.

Today the forecaster chose to show the evolution of conditions by drawing five graphics valid across the period, which is presented in the loop below.

Transportation briefing graphic valid 00Z Feb 16 - 00Z Feb 17.  IFR conditions are outlined by the red solid line, Icing by the green dashed line, and turbulence by the yellow dashed line.

Day 3: Afternoon Transportation Briefing

Similar to yesterday, we participated in the afternoon transportation transportation in collaboration with HPC.  In producing today's graphic, the forecaster at the experimental National Aviation Meteorologist desk collaborated with each of the area forecast desks here in the aviation weather testbed.  Again, the focus of the graphic produced by AWC was on aviation threats.  This graphic helped to supplement the precipitation focus of the HPC briefing graphic.

Day 2: Afternoon Transportation Briefing

As part of the first week of the 2013 Winter Weather Experiment, the Aviation Weather Testbed is working with the HPC Winter Experiment to produce a collaborative transportation briefing.
In addition to collaboration with the HPC, this forecast was also produced with collaborations involving NWS WFO forecasters and the experimental Global Graphics forecasting desk that is part of the experiment.

One of the AWC National Aviation Meteorologists (stationed at the FAA System Command Center) is participating in the HPC Experiment this week and is focusing on communicating precipitation types and timing.  The graphic below was produced by an AWC forecaster in Kansas City and focuses on the icing, turbulence, and IFR conditions associated with a system that is forecast to impact the east coast on Feb 14-15.

Transportation briefing graphic valid 14 Feb 00Z - 15 Feb 00Z.  Depiction of IFR, icing, turbulence, and wind threats associated with forecast cyclone.

One of the automated tools that is available to forecasters and air traffic planners is the Aviation Winter Weather Dashboard.  The dashboard translates winter weather as forecast by the SREF into terminal impacts based on how well the airport can handle certain winter weather events.  Below is a snapshot of the dashboard showing terminal impacts in the northeast as forecast by the 09Z SREF on 12 February.

Aviation Winter Weather Dashboard showing terminals in the Northeast.  Forecast from the 09Z SREF on 12 Feb.