IDENTIFICATION OF AVIATION WEATHER HAZARDS BASED ON THE INTEGRATION OF RADAR AND LIGHTNING DATA

The National Weather Service Eastern Region is carrying out a national risk-reduction exercise at the Baltimore-Washington Forecast Office i n Sterling, Virginia. The primary objective of this project is to inte grate information from remote sensor technologies to produce comprehen sive state-of-the-atmosphere reports that promote aviation safety. Tec hniques have been developed and tested to identify aviation-oriented h azardous weather based on data from conventional radars, a national li ghtning detection network, and collateral observations from new Automa ted Surface Observing System (ASOS) sites that are being deployed thro ughout the nation. From July through September 1993, an experimental o bservational product to identify convective activity within 30 n mi of six airports from southern Virginia to Delaware was transmitted three times each hour to personnel at Weather Service Offices and Center We ather Service Units and to the meteorologists and flight dispatchers o f five major air carriers. This user-oriented evaluation and the assoc iated statistical analysis has provided important feedback to assess t he utility of the product as a supplement to ASOS. integration of info rmation from several products generated by the new Doppler radar at St erling with lightning network data is being pursued for the second pha se of the project. The National Weather Service will determine the via bility of this approach to generate products to routinely supplement t he information provided by ASOS on either a national or a local basis.