The FAA Aviation Weather Research Program (AWRP) researches applied weather to minimize the impact of weather on the National Airspace System (NAS).

The research goal is to transition new or improved weather capabilities into evolving air traffic management decision support systems, incorporate them into the National Weather Service (NWS), or both to improve the delivery of FAA-required services and enhance aviation safety and efficiency.

AWRP initiatives consist of the following:

• Meeting specific weather information needs by stakeholders and NAS users
• Mitigating weather-related safety and efficiency issues with a line of sight to operations
• Evolving weather information required today in legacy capabilities to meet emerging needs, often in collaboration with the NWS

AWRP research areas include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Turbulence
• In-flight icing
• Convective weather
• Ceiling and visibility (C&V)
• Advanced weather radar techniques
• Weather prediction model development and enhancement
• Space weather

The FAA collaborates with the NWS via the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration NWS Aviation Weather Center Web Portal to provide fast, reliable access to advanced weather products and flight planning tools, including forecast products sponsored by the AWRP. A broad community of users, including pilots, dispatchers, and Flight Service Station briefers account for more than 10 million hits per day on this web portal. The FAA also collaborates with the NOAA National Severe Storms Laboratory (NSSL) through the Advanced Weather Radar Techniques (AWRT) program. The FAA funded-aviation weather research products are tested on NOAA NSSL’s developmental Multi-Radar Multi-Sensor (MRMS) product viewer before implementation into the operational MRMS system.

The following indicate the various successes throughout the history of AWRP.

AWRP Featured Articles

The following publications highlight the accomplishments of the AWRP research meteorologists and engineers:

• The General Aviation News article, “New visibility tool in the works for FAA weather camera program,” spotlights the Visibility Estimation through Image Analytics (VEIA) algorithm and supporting Weather Camera program led by FAA engineer Jenny Colavito. 5/2023
• The FocusFAA article, “Experiment ices award for aviation weather team,” highlights the Inflight Icing project lead, Danny Sims, and the FAA-led In-Cloud Icing and Large-drop Experiment (ICICLE). 3/2023
• The Vertical Magazine article, “New technology to enhance FAA weather camera program,” features FAA Engineer and Ceiling & Visibility lead Jenny Colavito and the Visibility Estimation through Image Analytics (VEIA) algorithm. 3/2023