VISIT: Meteorological Interpretation Blog

The June 2008 copy of “The Front” newsletter highlights upcoming changes to the new Terminal Aerodrome Forecast (TAF) which is scheduled to go operational this November (2008).  See this site: www.weather.gov/os/aviation/taf_testbed.shtml for more information. 

And speaking of TAFs, want to know just what happens to those TAFs you write?  Just what do the Center Weather Service Units (CWSU)s, Air Traffic Control Centers (ARTCC)s, and the airports themselves do with those forecasts? Well, they turn them into valuable graphical displays that help reduce weather related airspace congestion, that’s what.  See the story starting on page three.  For a good “live” example, click here. 

Finally, this season’s newsletter ends with a bit of research coming from the Aviation Weather Center (AWC) regarding the prediction of thunderstorm movement throughout the seasons.  More than 27,000 Convective SIGMETs were analyzed for this study whose details begin on page ten.  Good way to categorize and address the “climatology” of thunderstorms in your area throughout the year. 

(Courtesy NASA/MODIS/TERRA - July 26, 2008)

Currently, California has 26 fire incidents…mostly across the northern half of the state.  Fourteen of these fires are considered large at the moment (= or > 100 acres…see following map).

To date (this fire season - through July 30, 2008), over 750,000 acres of California have burned. Most of the current fires started as a result of lightning strikes between June 20th and June 28th…with a couple of them going back to the last week in May!  Several thousand firefighters from across the country have been deployed to the region over the last couple of months, with additional fire specialists from Canada, Australia, and New Zealand also helping out.  Many Incident Meteorologists are also working these fires this summer.  Check out this recent visible image loop that shows the region between the evening of July 29th and through the morning of the 30th. For more information on these fires as well as others across the country, please go to these sites:  http://gacc.nifc.gov/oncc/, http://www.nifc.gov/, and http://www.inciweb.org/ .

Volcanoes, particularly volcanic ash, are major concerns to many of us in meteorology.  While the physical presence of the mountain and the energy expended during an eruption can be quite enormous, dangerous, and both life and property threating,  the atmospheric discharge of ash can also be a major hazard to aviation as well as the local health communities.

The recent eruption of Okmok (1st eruption - July 12) volcano in the Alaskan Aleutian Islands has garnered some recent press in the USA which started as recently as July 12, 2008 (see photo above - courtesy NOAA).  Days later (July 17th) part of the plume was seen coming into our own Pacific Northwest (CIMMS blog).  However, there have been many other important eruptions around the world which have already impacted the lives of many and continue threaten many more.  The Chaitin Volcano in Chili is a good example (see photos from National Geographic here).  Below are links to many of the volcano centers around the world, including their most recent and active volcanoes:

Anchorage Volcanic Ash Advisory Center (Okmok - Alaska, USA);  Buenos Aires VAAC (Ubinas - Peru); Darwin VAAC (Rabaul - New Britain); Tokyo VAAC (Sakurajima - Japan); Toulouse VAAC (Sete Cidades - Azores); Washington VAAC (Tungurahua - Ecuador).

Other important links which include volcanic (ash) eruption concerns:

Alaska Aviation Weather Unit; and NOAA/NWS Aviation Weather Center �

Here is a paper/discussion presented at this year’s 13th Conference on Aviation, Range, and Aerospace Meteorology by Haig Iskenderian (from MIT) titled, “Cloud-to-Ground Lightning as a Proxy for Nowcasts of VIL and Echo Tops.”  Although geared toward the aviation community, this inforamtion can be valuable to any WFO with forecasting/warning duties in their CWA in which radar coverage is depleated, such as: 1) sparse at the edges with no good adjacent radar coverage. 2) Has terrain/city/etc blockage. 3) A coastal office with no radar coverage offshore, etc. 4) Radar outages.

Relationship proxy determinations have been sought between cloud-to-ground lightning data and the radar fields of VIL and echo tops for use in the event of degraded or lost radar data. A probability matching methodology was applied to lightning and radar data to develop the proxy relationships.

It’s worth taking note of if for no other reason than to aid in those tricky warning situations when just a little bit more info is needed.  “To issue, or to not issue…that is the question.” 

Below are some links to, or copies of, some perhaps lesser known meteorological training materials.  Many of these have been born out of Aviation Weather programs either here in the USA through the military Air Force Weather Agency (AFWA) or the FAA, or from up north and our Canadian Neighbors.  Although some of the information is based on region specific examples, all of it (the principles, etc.) can be applied to most of our own geographic areas. 

First up is a link to NAV Canada, a privately run non-profit organization that operates Canada’s Civil Air Navigation Service.  This section contains an in depth training manuals section that is broken into six geographic regions that cover the whole of Canada.  Truly indispensable stuff here for all but tropical forecasters: NAV Canada Maunuals

Next up is the Air Force Weather Agency’s “Meteorological Techniques” which is an in depth compilation of many various weather forecasting parameters and techniques.  It is another truly indispensable item to be used for review, support, rules of thumb (tricks of the trade).   Also by AFWA, great training, practice, and supplemental review is the manual of the Mesoscale Forecast Process. 

This paper by John Mecikalski and Kristopher Bedka titled, “Forecasting Convective Initiation by Monitoring the Eveolution of Moving Cumulus in Daytime GOES Imagery” is a little long in the tooth (title-wise), but is definitely worth a read. 

More in the way of research papers / training materails will be posted here from time to time.  If you know of some lesser known, but valuable training for those of us in the weather business, please send us the information so that we may pass in on to others.�