An Enhanced Convective Forecast (ECF) for the New York TRACON Area

In an effort to relieve summer-time congestion in the NY Terminal Radar Approach Control (TRACON) area, the FAA is testing an enhanced convective forecast (ECF) product. The test began in June 2008 and is scheduled to run through early September. The ECF is updated every two hours, right before the Air Traffic Control System Command Center (ATCSCC) national planning telcon. It is intended to be used by traffic managers throughout the National Airspace System (NAS) and airlines dispatchers to supplement information from the Collaborative Convective Forecast Product (CCFP) and the Corridor Integrated Weather System (CIWS). The ECF begins where the current CIWS forecast ends at 2 hours and extends out to 12 hours. Unlike the CCFP it is a detailed deterministic forecast with no aerial coverage limits. It is created by an ENSCO forecaster using a variety of guidance products including, the Weather Research and Forecast (WRF) model. This is the same version of the WRF that ENSCO runs over the Florida peninsula in support of launch operations at the Kennedy Space Center. For this project, the WRF model domain has been shifted to the Northeastern US. Several products from the NASA SPoRT group are also used by the ENSCO forecaster. In this paper we will provide examples of the ECF products and discuss individual cases of traffic management actions using ECF guidance.