Publications

The long-term objectives for the NextGen Weather Processor (NWP) include consolidation of today's multiple weather systems, incorporation of recent and emerging Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) infrastructure (Federal Telecommunications Infrastructure (FTI), System Wide Information Management (SWIM), NextGen Network-Enabled Weather (NNEW)), leveraging National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administraiton (NOAA) and/or commercial weather resources, and providing a solid development and runn-time platform for advanced aviation weather capabilities. These objectives are to be achieved in a staged fashion, ideally with new components coming on-line in time to replace existing capabilities prior to their end-of-life dates. As part of NWP Segment 1, a number of alternative implementations for the NWP as it might exist in the 2013 time frame have been proposed. This report examines the alternatives form a top-down technical perspective, assessing how well each maps to a high-level NWP architecture consistent with the long-term NextGen information sharing vision. Tehcnical challenges and opportunities for weather product improvements associated with each alternative are discussed. Additional alternatives consistent with the high-level NWP architecture, as well as a number of suggested follow-on analysis efforts are also presented.

Flight delays are now a major problem in the U.S. National Airspace System. A significant fraction of these delays are caused by reductions in en route capacity due to severe convective weather. The Corridor Integrated Weather System (CIWS) is a fully automated weather analysis and forecasting system designed to support the development and execution of convective weather impact mitigation plans for congested en route airspace. The CIWS combines data from dozens of weather radars with satellite data, surface observations, and numerical weather models to dramatically improve the accuracy and timeliness of the storm severity information and to provide state-of-the-art, accurate, automated, high-resolution, animated three-dimensional forecasts of storms (including explicit detection of storm growth and decay). Real-time observations of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) decision making process during convective weather at Air Route Traffic Control Centers in the Midwest and Northeast have shown that the CIWS enables the FAA users to achieve more efficient tactical use of the airspace, reduce traffic manager workload, and significantly reduce delays. A real-time data-fusion architecture to assist in national deployment of CIWS is under development, and the CIWS products are being used in integrated air traffic management decision support systems.

Reducing thunderstorm-related air traffic delays in congested airspace has become a major objective of the FAA, especially given the recent growth in convective delays. In 2000 and 2001, the key new initiative for reducing these convective weather delays was "strategic" traffic flow management (TFM). Users were given 2-, 4-, and 6-hour collaborative convective weather forecasts, and collaborative traffic routing plans were established via telecons attended by Air Traffic Control (ATC) and airline traffic managers. This "strategic" approach led to difficulties during a large fraction of the weather events because it was not possible to generate forecasts of convective weather at time horizons between 2 and 6 hours that were accurate enough to assess impacts on routes and capacity, and thereby accomplish effective TFM. During convective weather events, traffic managers tend to focus on tactical TFM [Huberdeau, 2004], yet they had relatively inaccurate current weather information and tactical forecasts. The Corridor Integrated Weather System (CIWS) demonstration began in 2001. The objectives of the demonstration are to provide improved tactical air traffic management (ATM) decision support, via improved real time 3D products and accurate short-term convective weather forecasts, and to determine if this support is an operationally useful complement to "strategic" TFM. The current focus of the CIWS initiative is the highly congested airspace containing the Great Lakes and Northeast corridors, since that region offers the greatest potential for delay reduction benefits. In this paper, we describe the current status of CIWS, including initial operational results of Air Traffic Control (ATC) and airline use of the CIWS weather products. We begin with some CIWS background, describing the motivation for the program, the role of CIWS products in the overall convective weather planning process, and the functional domains in which CIWS products can provide operationally significant benefits. We then review the current CIWS capabilities, spatial coverage, sensors used, products, operational users, and integration with ATM systems. Next the detailed CIWS operational benefits study carried out in 2003 is summarized. Finally, we discuss the FAA plans for CIWS and near term enhancements to the system.

The Integrated Terminal Weather System (ITWS) is one of two major development projects sponsored by the FMs Aviation Weather Development Program. Focused on the environment within the airport terminal area, ITWS integrates data from FAA and National Weather Service (NWS) sensors and systems to provide a suite of weather informational products for improving air terminal planning, capacity, and safety. This article provides an overview of the ITWS project, presenting the system concept, some of the design and engineering challenges, and plans for development that will lead to operational systems in the field.