Weather Support to Deicing Decision Making (WSDDM) : A winter weather nowcasting system

Abstract This paper describes a winter weather nowcasting system called Weather Support to Deicing Decision Making (WSDDM), designed to provide airline, airport, and air traffic users with winter weather information relevant to their operations. The information is provided on an easy to use graphical display and characterizes airport icing conditions for nonmeteorologists. The system has been developed and refined over a series of winter–long airport demonstrations at Denver's Stapleton International Airport, Chicago's O'Hare International Airport, and New York's LaGuardia Airport. The WSDDM system utilizes commercially available weather information in the form of Next Generation Weather Radar WSR–88D radar reflectivity data depicted as color coded images on a window of the display and Aviation Routine Weather Report (METAR) surface weather reports from Automated Surface Observating System stations and observers. METAR information includes wind speed and direction, air temperature, and precipitation type/...