Consolidated Storm Prediction for Aviation (CoSPA)
Weather exerts a disruptive influence on aviation, both in the terminal area and en-route air traffic flow. Weather-related delays clearly increase during the convective weather season (approximately April through September), but also winter weather can cause havoc throughout the national airspace system. Reliable detection of hazardous weather and predictions thereof several hours in advance are essential for aviation users to achieve safe and efficient use of the airspace. Currently, weather avoidance is largely done in real-time responding to existing weather hazards (i.e., on a tactical basis) rather than through planning ahead based on anticipated weather (i.e., strategic decision). This is partly because of the weather forecast uncertainty and also because of a limited integration of weather information into automated air traffic management decision support tools.
The development of a Consolidated Storm Prediction for Aviation (CoSPA) product has been initiated by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in order to replace a plethora of currently available weather forecast products by a single forecast to be used in all government-provided aviation weather systems. CoSPA will embody the best techniques available today, with an open modular architecture that enables easy exchange of algorithm modules, as new or upgraded techniques become available. CoSPA will build upon a mixture of observation-based expert systems and numerical weather prediction model to provide seamless 0 – 8 h forecasts of convective hazards and heavy snowfall. An initial forecast demonstration experiment of a CoSPA prototype will begin in summer 2008. CoSPA is a collaborative effort between the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Lincoln Laboratory, and the NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory (ESRL) under sponsorship of the FAA.