November-December 2022 - 14

WINTER WEATHER OPERATIONS
AUTHOR Kari Luukkonen
Optimize Airport Efficiency and Safety When
Winter Weather Strikes
Building situational awareness into your winter
weather plans minimizes downtime when storms hit.
NO MATTER where an airport is located, severe weather
conditions can complicate how decision-makers maintain
the safety and efficiency of its logistics and operations.
And for many, the colder months bring especially
unique challenges having to contend with winter
weather, as one blizzard or ice storm can cause a chain
reaction wreaking havoc across the globe.
These severe weather events create
potentially hazardous conditions
that cause cost-prohibitive, inconvenient
delays and put lives at risk.
According to the Federal Aviation
Administration, inclement weather
conditions are the most significant
cause of flight delays making up nearly
70 percent of all delays exceeding 15
minutes in an average year. What's
more is
the safety factor. While
human error is the most common
cause of accidents, the weather is a
primary contributing factor in nearly
25 percent of all aviation accidents.
This is why accurate situational
awareness is critical to airports and
requires the right tools to effectively
assess storms, visibility, wind, precipitation,
freezing conditions, runway
surfaces and more. When it comes
to winter weather, the best aviation
weather management systems incorporate
a wide range of sensors to produce
the most valuable real-time reports
and alerts.
Unfortunately,
conventional
present weather sensors don't always
deliver the necessary information aviation
industry decision-makers need
to make more accurate weather
predictions and reduce
costly delays. A significant
number of
amendments to METAR
reports are due to false present
weather information. This is typically
due to three primary issues:
* Detection: Missed weather
events due to insufficient detection
sensitivity.
* Ident ificat ion:
Inadequate
precipitation identification
performance due to a lack of
high-quality raw data and unoptimized
identification algorithms.
* Field Performance: Increased
operational measurement disturbances
caused by suboptimal
product design and lack of contamination
compensation.
Fortunately, by integrating the
latest real-time weather and system
algorithms with accurate weather
observations and reporting, innovative
aviation weather management
solutions enable comprehensive situational
awareness of the weather
within and above airport boundaries.
Empowered with such solutions, decision-makers
can improve the effectiveness
and timeliness of
weather impact
mitigation plans and help
pilots avoid or take precautionary
measures in inclement conditions.
These solutions better maintain safe,
efficient operations and minimize
downtime when severe weather
strikes, most notably with freezing
conditions, low visibility and wind.
Accurate situational awareness requires the right tools to effectively assess storms,
visibility, wind, precipitation, freezing conditions, runway surfaces and more.
1018079818 | SHUTTERSTOCK
14 \ AIRPORT BUSINESS / NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2022
November-December 2022

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of November-December 2022
