Insite, Integrated Support For Impacted Air-traffic Environments

Abstract

The INtegrated Support for Impacted air-Traffic Environments (INSITE) is a web-based prototype application made available in the early summer of 2013 to support Operational Bridging (OB), a process established by the Collaborative Decision Making Weather Evaluation Team. OB is intended to bridge the gap between weather information and its use for air traffic management decisions. The key output of OB is a collaborated, event-driven forecast product known as the Aviation Weather Statement (AWS). INSITE incorporates weather information from observations as well as from five forecast products (CIWS, HRRR, LAMP, SREF, and CCFP). In addition to displaying the original weather products, it also provides a constraint field derived from each product using a combination of weather and traffic density information. Further, INSITE provides a weighted average of the 5 constraint forecasts, considered a ‘synthesis' of the products. All of the constraint forecasts include a measure of confidence of those forecasts, or in the case of the synthesis, a measure of the consistency of the 5 member forecasts. Another key feature of INSITE is that the user can interact with the application to outline a region of interest, in order to determine the severity of constraint within that region. More detailed constraint information can be viewed specific to this region with respect to airways or Air Route Traffic Control Centers (ARTCCs) that intersect it. INSITE is designed to provide forecaster guidance in the creation of the Aviation Weather Statement (AWS) by highlighting areas of potential impact and providing detailed information on the effects of weather on operations. It is aligned with several of the service concepts that are part of the NWS vision for a Weather Ready Nation, including: • Supporting a shift from product focus to product interpretation and consultation • Communicating on-demand forecast confidence information • Delivering information in a way that conveys potential impacts and supports good decision-making and planning.