The Meteorological Development Laboratory’s Aviation Weather Prediction System

Abstract

The Meteorological Development Laboratory (MDL) has developed and implemented an aviation weather prediction system that runs each hour and produces forecast guidance for each hour into the future out to 25 h covering the major forecast period of the National Weather Service (NWS) Terminal Aerodrome Forecast. The Localized Aviation Model Output Statistics (MOS) Program (LAMP) consists of analyses of observations, simple advective models, and a statistical component that updates the longer-range MOS forecasts from the Global Forecast System (GFS) model. LAMP, being an update to GFS MOS, is shown to be an improvement over it, as well as improving over persistence. LAMP produces probabilistic forecasts for the aviation weather elements of ceiling height, sky cover, visibility, obstruction to vision, precipitation occurrence and type, and thunderstorms. Best-category forecasts are derived from these probabilities and their associated thresholds. The LAMP guidance of sensible weather is available for 1591 stations in the contiguous United States, Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands. Probabilistic guidance of thunderstorms is also available on a grid. The LAMP guidance is available to the entire weather enterprise via NWS communication networks and the World Wide Web. In the future, all station guidance will be gridded and be made available in a form compatible with the NWS?s National Digital Forecast Database.