RAP scientists are conducting research related to the formation and prediction of snow and freezing drizzle in support of improved methods of detecting and forecasting these conditions at airports. Airport ground deicing operations are significantly effected by both snow and freezing precipitation (rain and drizzle), thus improved detection and forecasts of these conditions will increase both the safety and efficiency of airline and airport operations. This work has been primarily funded by the FAA and directed through their Winter Weather Research Product Development Team (WWRPDT).

A primary product developed by this PDT has been the Weather Support to Deicing Decision Making (WSDDM) system. This system provides real-time and 30 minute nowcasts of snowfall conditions at the airport on a single, integrated display. A key component of the system is the use of liquid equivalent snowgauges to provide deicing operators a real-time estimate of the actual snowfall rate. Currently, only visibility based snow intensities are available operationally from the National Weather Service. Research conducted by this PDT has shown that visibility can often be misleading when trying to estimate liquid equivalent snowfall rate and may have been a factor in previous ground deicing accidents (Rasmussen et al. 1999, Rasmussen et al. 2000). The WSDDM system provides a real-time snowfall estimate based on liquid equivalent rate to alert ground deicing users regarding this hazardous "high visibility - high snowfall rate" condition.

Significant cost savings have been reported when the accumulated water plot on the WSDDM System is used to help set the fluid mixtures during airport de-icing operations.