Improving Weather Radar Data Quality for Aviation Weather Needs*

A fundamental function of any aviation weather system is to provide accurate and timely weather information tailored to the specific air traffic situations for which a system is designed. Weather location and intensity are of prime importance to such systems. Knowledge of the weather provides “nowcasting” functionality in the terminal and en route air spaces. It also is used as input into aviation weather forecasting applications for purposes such as storm tracking, storm growth and decay trends, and convective initiation. Weather radar products are the primary source of the weather location and intensity information used by the aviation weather systems. In the United States, the primary radar sources are the Terminal Doppler Weather Radar (TDWR) and the Weather Surveillance Radar 1988 Doppler (WSR-88D, known as NEXRAD). Additional weather radar products from the Canadian network are used by some of the aviation weather systems. Product quality from all these radars directly impacts the quality of the down stream products created by the aviation weather systems and their utility to air traffic controllers. Four FAA weather systems use some combination of products from the aforementioned radars. They are the Corridor Integrated Weather System (CIWS), the Integrated Terminal Weather System (ITWS), the Weather and Radar Processor (WARP), and the Medium Intensity Airport Weather System (MIAWS). This paper focuses on the improvement of weather radar data quality specific to CIWS. The other mentioned FAA aviation weather systems also benefit either directly or indirectly from the improvements noted in this paper.