Finally a weather product based on need and not a schedule.
The Weather Evaluation Team (WET) has been hard at work implementing the Operational Bridging (OB) concept and developing the newest collaborative weather tool; the Collaborative Aviation Weather Statement (CAWS).
As you know, we made the most from the current weather modeling technology produced by NOAA and this past November we started with the first ever year-round CCFP. CCFP will continue to be issued every two hours on a 24/7 basis to provide a scheduled convective product corresponding with and supporting the 2-hourly Strategic Planning Telcons (SPTs).
Now we are poised for OB to come to life as traffic managers and meteorologists from both government and industry will be engaged in a continuous collaboration. On March 3, we will begin the CAWS. The CAWS improves on CCFP in a number of ways. It is issued on an event-driven basis rather than a rigid schedule, so the product will support more timely traffic management decisions. It is focused on areas of air traffic impact, so the meteorologists can go into greater detail about a specific convective event in order to support more effective decisions and focus their efforts where and when the weather is most critical to the NAS. Finally, it will enable decision makers to resolve conflicts between the many available convective products using guidance from expert meteorologists. The CCFP and the CAWS will be the primary weather products used by traffic managers to implement traffic flow management strategies.
In keeping with the spirit of CDM, the CAWS will be the product of collaboration between government and industry meteorologists just as the CCFP has been for many years.
Please click on the link for the CAWS Training