If you liked the video of Fedex arrivals during thunderstorms, you might be interested in some of the following.

RAPT Automation Tool

The New York Port Authority, through a cooperative research and development agreement, has sponsored the development of a decision support tool to assist air traffic controllers with the management of traffic in the busy New York terminal airspace during convective weather events. The Route Availability Planning Tool (RAPT) uses the convective weather forecast of the Corridor Integrated Weather System and modeled aircraft trajectories to determine when specific departure routes will be blocked by severe weather. During its first year of operation, the prototype RAPT has permitted substantial delay reduction in the New York area.

Weather Forecasting Accuracy for FAA Traffic Flow Management: A Workshop Report

The characteristics of these tools suggest how operational users might utilize highly accurate 2- to 6-hour convective forecasts when they are developed. A departure route availability planning tool (RAPT) that uses the 0- to 60-minute Terminal Convective Weather Forecasts commenced operational evaluation at the New York terminal area and surrounding en-route facilities in August 2002. RAPT examines four-dimensional intersections of planes with forecasted storm locations to determine appropriate departure times from a runway. The RAPT software will utilize the 0- to 2-hour Regional Convective Weather Forecasts at a number of air traffic control facilities in 2003. Direct use of convective forecasts to assist air traffic users in making decisions about traffic routing, such as illustrated by RAPT, has significant implications for the presentation of convective weather forecasts and validation. First, the uncertainty of convective forecasts needs to be expressed in a way that allows tools such as RAPT to provide guidance to operational users as to the likelihood of a route being available for use as a function of time. And second, convective forecast accuracy needs to be verified in the context of operational value to the user, particularly by explicitly addressing the accuracy for route usage decisions. Key Points Identified by Presenters on Ways to Present Forecasts Two- to 6-hour convective weather forecast products should be designed to facilitate air traffic control and airline decisions such as predicted capacity, route availability, and the fuel to be loaded on aircraft. Because accurate deterministic 2- to 6-hour forecasts are not available, it is necessary to develop probabilistic forecasts that can readily be used by both humans and automated air traffic management decision support tools. The FAA will need to also have a robust “tactical” convective weather decision support capability that takes advantage of the rapid progress in nowcast and numerical modeling capability, which implies a change in focus for the Systems Command Center from strategic to tactical. In addition to these deterministic and probabilistic forecasts, traffic flow management and traffic automation decision support tools can assist in the development and execution of weather impact mitigation plans.

Corridor Integrated Weather System (CIWS)

Most en route weather decision support systems show only past or current storm locations, and existing operational forecast products within en route airspace are limited. Two national-scale forecast products are provided by the Aviation Weather Center: the automated National Convective Weather Forecast (NCWF) 1-hour forecast, and the Collaborative Convective Forecast Product (CCFP) 2, 4, and 6-hour forecasts that are updated every two hours. While these products are helpful, the highly congested airspace requires very accurate, current, high-resolution weather information and forecasts to safely improve air traffic flow during thunderstorms.

The Route Availability Planning Tool (RAPT), used in the NY ITWS to increase departure rates in severe weather, is being interfaced to the CIWS RCWF to facilitate RAPT use at other major TRACONs. This coupling of highly accurate CIWS forecast information with ATM tools that help users take advantage of the high volume of information and shared situational awareness among coordinating facilities, will help to further increase the delay reduction and safety benefits provided by CIWS.

FAA Operational Evolution Plan

The disruptions in air traffic caused by hazardous en route weather are magnified by the lack of common understanding of weather information, and the intrinsic uncertainty of the forecast. There is a discrepancy between weather forecasts and the observed weather; there is a deficiency in the application of weather information to manage traffic flow in congested airspace. A commitment to operational change can be implemented by first improving the detection and forecasting of hazardous weather, although these improvements will be incremental. Secondly, the impacts of weather can be mitigated through improved distribution, display, training, and application of weather information. Finally, the integration of weather information into Decision Support Systems (DSSs) and automated tools will achieve the full potential for operational change by maximizing the capacity of the airspace and improving the efficiency with which the NAS is utilized, even during disruptive events of hazardous weather.

Integrating Improved Weather Forecast Data with TFM Decision Support Systems

This paper suggests that by using existing and integrating improved weather forecast products with Traffic Flow Management (TFM) Decision Support Systems (DSSs), flow managers and customers can better collaborate on reroutes to avoid weather and provide the customer with fuel efficient routing alternatives.