PILOT REPORTS OF ICING
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Pilots that encounter icing conditions while in flight will often
report them to air traffic controllers.  These pilot reports, or 
"PIREPs", provide valuable information about aircraft encounters
with icing, turbulence and other weather phenomena.  Data included
in the PIREPs include the location and altitude of the icing or
turbulence encounter, it's intensity and type, winds, temperature 
and more.

The plots given in this section show PIREPs of icing encounters.
Icing type is indicated by the letters drawn (R=rime icing, C=clear
icing and X=mixed icing).  Intensity of the icing is indicated by 
the size and color of the letter (small/green = trace through light 
intensity, medium/white = light-moderate through moderate intensity, 
and large/orange = moderate-severe through severe intensity).

The type of aircraft is plotted up and to the right of the R, C or X.
The top of the reported icing altitude (in 100's of feet) is given 
to the right of the R, C or X, and the bottom of the reported icing 
altitude range is given down and to the right of the R, C or X.  
This is only done for PIREPs with moderate or greater icing
intensity.  One plot of the national PIREPs has this information,
the other does not, since it can make for a cluttered plot when
there are alot of PIREPs.  An alternative way of plotting the
PIREPs is available using Greg Thompson's PIREP plot.

Outlines of the current OFFICIAL icing forecasts from the Aviation 
Weather Center are drawn as yellow polygons.  Text versions of these
"AIRMETs" (AIRmen's METeorological informations) are given in the
Cleveland Weather Data section of this page, as well as a link to
the Aviation Weather Center web site.

The plots are updated every 10 minutes and show all of the PIREPs
reported within between now and the the top of the previous hour.

On the expanded maps for IIDA, the abbreviations for the PIREP areas
are as follows:
	US-1 - PIREPs for whole country without aircraft type or altitude
	US-2 - PIREPs for whole country with aircraft type or altitude
	NW   - PIREPs for the northwestern US
	NE   - PIREPs for the northeastern US
	SW   - PIREPs for the southwestern US
	SE   - PIREPs for the southeastern US
	MIDW - PIREPs for the midwestern US (formerly the Chicago area plot)
	PLNS - PIREPs for the Great Plains 
	ROCK - PIREPs for the Rocky Mountains (formerly the Denver area plot)
	DEN  - PIREPs for the ZOOMED IN Denver area
	ORD  - PIREPs for the ZOOMED IN Chicago area
	IAD  - PIREPs for the ZOOMED IN Washington DC area
	FLA  - PIREPs for the ZOOMED IN Florida area