Insite: Impact-based Decision Support Services For Aviation Weather

Abstract

INtegrated Support for Impacted air-Traffic Environments (INSITE) is a prototype web-based application developed to support the convective weather forecast process for aviation. The tool blends convective weather information with traffic information to provide guidance to forecasters on potential impacts to en-route aviation operations. Airspace constraints are computed individually for five convective weather forecast products, as well as observations, using either historical or currently planned air traffic data. Confidence information for each of the products is derived from historical performance, which is also used as part of the product weighting in a blend of the forecast products known as the Synthesis. INSITE includes geographical views of constraints as well as capabilities to identify event severity and timing for user-specified regions. Constraint information is updated hourly with the most recent guidance and traffic information. An alert capability is also available to highlight regions of medium or greater constraint for user-selected products. INSITE v4.0 was completed and made available during the 2016 convective season to NWS forecasters including the Aviation Weather Center, the National Aviation Meteorologists at the Air Traffic System Control Center (ATSCC), and local Weather Forecast Offices and Center Weather Service Units. It was also included in the 2016 Aviation Weather Testbed Summer Experiment. This presentation will include an overview of the tool, a summary of feedback received in 2016, and respective updates to the tool that were incorporated into version 4.0. It will also include a summary of the latest activities toward operationalizing the tool. Supplementary URL: http://esrl.noaa.gov/fiqas/tech/impact/insite/