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. 

Presented by Steven Silberberg, AWC/NCEP, Kansas City, MO - at the 5th GOES Users Conference in January of 2008.

The Aviation Weather Center (AWC) makes extensive use of GOES imagery in its forecast operations. AWC forecast operations include a continuous meteorological watch world-wide for aviation weather such as: cloud type, bases, and tops; low cloud ceilings; supercooled clouds for aircraft icing; towering cumulus and thunderstorms; low visibility; blowing sand and dust; fog; smoke; volcanic ash; mountain obscuration; mountain waves; turbulence at the surface, aloft, in clear air and in clouds; strong low level wind; and low-level wind shear.

AWC acquires GOES East and West imagery via a local ground station, and worldwide geostationary and polar orbiting satellite data from NESDIS and other McIDAS-X servers. AWC’s McIDAS-X server then produces customized satellite images developed by Fred Mosher for aviation applications.

AWC forecast operations use 11 products from GOES-East, 10 from GOES-West, and 30 global mosaic products for its international forecasting responsibilities. An example of customized satellite imagery for aviation applications is AWC’s day/night low cloud and fog image. This image uses temperature differences between the 11 and 3.9 micron bands. Particular temperature ranges for day and night are stretched into 0-255 counts to detect low cloud during the day and fog at night. Examples of customized aviation applications of GOES cloud images, volcanic ash images, global convective diagnostic, and global mosaics are shown.

Here (http://ams.confex.com/ams/88Annual/techprogram/paper_135952.htm) is the link to his recorded session given at the 5th GOES Users Conference.�