Aviation Weather Decision Support: Insite

Abstract

INtegrated Support for Impacted air-Traffic Environments (INSITE) is a web-based prototype application developed to support the convective weather forecast process for aviation. The tool provides guidance to forecasters by providing detailed information on the potential impacts of forecast convective weather to en-route aviation operations. INSITE incorporates weather information from observations as well as from five forecast products, combined with either historical or currently planned air traffic data, to produce a constraint field that highlights potential impacts to air traffic based upon the forecast weather conditions. The tool provides capabilities to visualize potential airspace constraints, along with interactive capabilities to identify event timing and specific regions or routes that may be impacted INSITE was made available to Aviation Weather Center (AWC) forecasters, the National Aviation Meteorologists at the Air Traffic Control System Command Center (ATCSCC), and local Weather forecast Offices (WFOs) and Center Weather Service Units (CWSUs) for evaluation and use for their forecast process during the 2015 convective season. INSITE was also evaluated during the 2015 Aviation Weather Testbed. This presentation will include an overview of the tool and how it supports the forecast process, a summary of the feedback gathered during 2015, and a report on the first steps towards operationalization of INSITE. Early feedback from users evaluating the tool demonstrates the utility of the tool in providing forecasters support to prepare their briefings to Traffic Flow Managers, as a guidance source in preparing the Collaborative Aviation Weather Statement (CAWS) product, and in the review of high impact historical convective weather events.