Weather Radar overlay on Radardiplays

[CRJ2]

hello,

do you have a possibility to overlay a weatherradar on your radardisplay?
Yesterday, approach into Zurich and the controller gave us vectors for an vor-dme approach to RWY28 but we couldn't accept these vectors due to buildups infront of us!
So my question, do you have on the ground weatherradars?

[BALIX]

Don't know about Zurich but our radar displays in Scotland do not show weather, at least not in any way that is useful to us. We are totally reliant on pilots telling us where it is and how they would like to avoid it.

[eastern wiseguy]

At Belfast the answer is no(and I suspect the same goes for a lot of places with processed displays).We rely on you guys telling us where it is. There is nothing worse for an approach person to have a sequence cocked up by weather avoiding.From my point of view I would like to see it and vector you round.

Places with older displays ,BHD for example, may have access to a raw display which shows a lot more in that regard.

[Spuds McKenzie]

Yes, we do have an overlay in ZRH, but only rudimentary.
It shows us where the areas of wx activity are (intensity of precipitation), but that's about it. Not as detailed as you would have it in the cockpit, therefore not to be used to suggest deviations.

[Barry Cuda]

In TC we now have a monitor on the GS desk that shows us a feed from the Chenies weather radar in the South of England. It seems to be pretty accurate, if a little out of date (5-10 mins behind if refreshed manually).

The only trouble with it is the fact that it is behind the controllers, so therefore we can't see it without looking away from the radar!!I know that the tech comm are trying to get NATS to invest in a decent "overlay" type system but we'll have to wait a while for that, I think.

By the way, we don't deliberately vector you into CB's, and as BALIX said we are pretty much reliant on the pilots to tell us where they want to go, within reason, when there is big black clouds out there.

[Jerricho]

We in Canada have a waether overlay that can show any current weather, or the history over the last hour or so (in 2 shades of blue supposedly to indicate high intensity or low intensity). The feed isn't real time and it sucks. We do also have a function that displays lightning strikes. I pay that far more creedence as it is much closer to real time, and if you have a tight grouping, it's fairly accurate at indicating at least one aera the drivers don't want to go.

[2Donkeys]

Amsterdam appears to have weather radar and are not shy about using it to suggest headings.

On the basis of what I hear about the UK's approach to equipping controllers with weather data, the Dutch either have a poorer understanding of the weaknesses of Wx radar than is ideal, or a more relaxed view of their potential liability than their UK counterparts.

2D

[Jerricho]

Stupid thing is how many ATS providers out there have the ability to pipe in real time, live wx feeds (I know Nav Canada can.......hang on, this is starting to sound like another thread :E :E). I believe the cousins down in the States can and do. Of course though, it's gonna mean spending the might dollar/pound/euro.

[BDiONU]

Having spent a fortune in filtering out weather from ATC radar displays to help us see the aircraft you now want us to put it back in?? :=

Seriously though NATS (NERL) are looking at some form of weather radar but the problems are many. For example:
1) How does a controller 'know' if the weather displayed by radar is bad enough such that a plane could not fly through it?

2) What exactly might it be that would be displayed, might be anything from some heavy rain to huge CuNim with masses of thuinder cells.

3) Don't many large civil aircraft already carry and use weather radar?

4) How would you display it to a tactical controller? Hopefully not as an overlay thus obscuring the radar picture. As yet another separate display on a fairly cluttered workstation? Sounds like an ergonomic nightmare.

Early days on that study so far.

BD

[2Donkeys]

In answer to your questions

1) He doesn't. But as with US NEXRAD data, he can at the very least be aware of the density of precipitation within a particular area.

2) A colour-coded tint would be displayed, reflecting the precipitation density (not type)

3) Yes. But airborne weather radar is much more subject to masking than a surface based mosaic.

4) This is nothing new. Rather than reinvent the wheel, might NATS not take a leaf out of the book of countries such as the US that already display this data for controllers.

Were a NEXRAD-like network to exist in the UK, the next step would be to make it available to aircraft via datalink - just like they do in the US.

It is amazing what could be done for both controllers and pilots if systems didn't have to be reinvented from the ground up in the UK.


2D

[Jerricho]

BD, the Nav Can displayes allow for an overlay to be added to the screen which is a blue colour (as I mentioned, 2 intensities). It doesn't obscure the radar at all, and given the lag time, you eventually do see wx in a position aircraft were diving around 15 mins ago. I think it could be a great idea, if it were current information.

How does a controller 'know' if the weather displayed by radar is bad enough such that a plane could not fly through it?

If it's Air Canada, you'll know :E ;)

[BDiONU]

Sorry I'm not familiar with the US NEXRAD system. However your question about uplinking weather to aircraft via datalink is a good one. Why don't the airlines do that?

As to the differences of UK versus USA, well the systems (apart from NAS) are different, hence the need to develop from the ground up in UK. Although there is a European attempt in progress to give a common ATC system (SACTA), delivering to NERL in the CASPIAN project, hopefully rolling out in 2011/12.

No intention to re-invent the wheel as NERL will look at other places which currently have that type of info displayed as a part of the study.

BTW to those who mentioned tinting the radar display for weather. How does that affect the quality of the picture and (more importantly) the clarity/viewability of the other colours on the screen? We have a lot of issues with viewing quality, font size etc. etc. and that sounds like a recipe to exacerbate them!

BD

[5milesbaby]

Swanwick has no ability to display weather on the radar, but occasionally some pro-active LAS will provide the latest printout from whatever their main computer shows. That said its funny who will fly through what and what you request to avoid and other times don't.

[CUNIM]

The reason that NavCan can display weather as an overlay is because they use a translucent layer principle. It was developed some eight or so years ago.

A further development of this is the translucent windows system where aircraft can not only be seen under active windows but also addressed through the window. If you go to google and type in "translucent ATC windows" you will probably see some of the work being done throughout industry. Malta, by the way has translucent weather data, but working on a different principle.:ok:

Forgot to add that there would be a possibility to display around four levels of weather along with their base and top levels.

[Scott Voigt]

As to the US <G>....

In the enroute environment we have two ways of displaying weather. We have the NEXRAD which is a weather service doppler wx radar. The info from this radar takes between 4 and 10 minutes to update depending on what mode it is in, and the controller has NO idea of the mode it is in. We display three levels of weather. Basicly level three as moderate rain, and then level four and close to five as heavy rain, and then the third band is displaying the high end of level five and then level six. This is also called just heavy rain. We don't display the first two levels so as to keep out ground clutter on the display. This is both good and bad. Bad in that we don't see some of the earliest buildups as they are growing and especially in the middle US where we can go from a towering Cu to a full mature thunderstorm in about 10 minutes, we could be describing a nice area and be putting you into a level six and would never know it.

The second type of weather display is that of the OLD weather overlay that came from your primary radar. It was digitized and overlayed in lines for light weather and H's as heavy weather. It was not the most accurate in that our radar was designed to filter out weather so that we could see aircraft (primary returns). It also suffers from annonymous propegation (or however you spell that.) These days probably 99% of the controllers don't use the old stuff.

The new stuff is nice for a general idea on movement and how the stuff is working in a line. But for summer time stuff that just pops up and goes away it is pretty useless. Many controllers however forget that it is historical data.

The approach controls all have some sort of real time weather display. The old ASR 7 and 8 radars have just one level of display which is a blob of precip. It is very accurate, but you have no idea if it is level one or level six. The ASR 9 and 11 radars all are doppler and have a WSP that allows for weather processing. If these radars are being used at an approach control with the OLD monochrome radar display (they are going away) then they can see three levels of the six. Two are displayed and one is observed as a blank area. If these radars have the new STARS display or the new Color ARTS display, they will get to see a color six level weather display which is normally pretty accurate, and it is updated every six seconds. We still aren't supposed to vector around weather as we see it since we can't guarantee that is where it actually is at, but we can try to paint you a picture so that you can use your airborne equipment to figure out a good way around the stuff.

As to NEXRAD in the cockpit, there are a couple of ways of getting that data in the US with datalink to your cockpit display or even to a PDA. All you have to do is pay for it, the same goes for the airlines, you can get all the data that you want to pay for. The airlines these days are not paying for anything that they don't absolutely have to...

regards

Scott

[Evil J]

Well I'm not a big fan of the 511 we use, but we dont really have the problems discussed here. Ok its not a heavily processed radar so may not be relevant to this discussion, but it does show weather rather nicely if the background video is selected.

Thus by toggling between having background video on and off you can display where the nasty stuff is; I tend to check with the crews that we are talking about the same bit of wx then it is very possible to at least get an idea of where the crew are likely to want to go.

I should add that without the background video on ie normal ops, only very heavy stuff will be shown so the wx filters do work very well.

Perhaps other sytems have become too processed?? Discuss...

[Iron City]

The information presented on the scope in the US is extremely processed. In terminal areas using the older ARTS or newer STARS the display is normally totally computer generated. In ARTS there are ways to obtain an analog-like primary picture used rarely, and in even older ARTS where the direct video feed was available could get raw radar. Most people these days wouldn't want it unless there was nothing else because of the clutter, missedtargets and lack of data blocks but it is better than nothing.

Providing the weather picture on the same tube as the ATC information is very difficult because what you need for one thing (ATC) gets obscured by the other (WX). Best way I've ever been controlled is "see the Sabreliner in front of you? He has Wx radar, follow him" It's not sexy or high tech but it works mostly.

the NEXRAD feeds are available on various web sites from the National Weather Service. They have a number of different products, not just reflectivity or precip and give you 6 levels. In some terminal areas that have lots of violent convective weather the Termina lDoppler Weather Radar (TDWR) is used but the controller generally has just a ribbon display that provides one of the sellection canned warnings picked by the machine. the pretty color displays are at the radar site and possible at the Sup desk. Pretty impressive pictures and a neat bit of technology.

[kieranR2]

Having worked with the newish NAVCAN system, the WX overlay is not very good in fact its useless for us. Have seen better out there, and some do exist.
Saw live demo of new Thales system with WX display / overlay was on face of it exactly what we need to provide better WX avoidance system and can see the display functions have been made with controllers or massive input by ATC. Not sure where they might have put it yet.

[Jerricho]

Kieran, have they re-activated your "lightning" function? We had ours put back on RSiT during the week and it came in very handy yesterday when a line of good cells came in from the west.

[texas01]

In Vancouver, we have no weather displayed. apparently it was used for a few days many years ago and was completely unreliable. I didn't realize other centres in Canada even had it.

[Euroc5175]

There are currently two 'projects' seeking funding within NATS.

The first of these is to replace MIST, which has been the system used to provide weather info to Traffic Managers, Group Sups and LAS positions during the last few years.

A trial has been underway of a potential system, known as WIND, in TC. However, there are various issues with WIND and the system in place has not been accepted as fit for operational use in its current format. MIST needs to be replaced as the Met Office want to turn it off in the near future. A project to find a NATS wide replacement should be starting soon, providing the funding is approved.

The 2nd 'project' is a requirement to provide near real-time weather information straight to the controller workstations. This could potentially be done on either a separate support display or as a selectable overlay on the radar display. I know that some controllers have been over to Amsterdam recently, and are full of praise for the system that is in use there. There could however be some issues with trying to pipe weather radar info into the NODE system, not least of which is the need to meet the safety requirements associated with NODE. I don't believe that this project has yet been submitted to the group that decides whether funding can be made available. However, it is hoped that a study can be kicked off in the near future. I believe that the Union has already approached NATS management to see if weather radar info can be made available on sector positions.

[PPRuNe Radar]

Euroc5175

Sounds to me like all the NATS references you make, in reality, mean TC only .... am I wrong ??

[Euroc5175]

PPRUNE Radar,

The MIST replacement will be rolled out at all sites currently using MIST. These include TC, LACC and MACC. I believe there are also plans for the MIST replacement to be deployed at ScACC as well, although it is unclear whether this will take place before the new Prestwick Centre becomes operational.

As for the project to place weather radar on sector positions, the requirements have not yet been defined. Hopefully all of the units will be consulted as to whether they require near real-time weather info on the sectors. Controller input at TC suggests that there is a strong desire to have weather radar available at LTCC.

[PPRuNe Radar]

Thanks for the update :ok:

[Scott Voigt]

Trust me, if it isn't real time, then the weather display is useless.

Scott

[Timothy]

While Yorkshire was receiving the phenomenal rainfall that caused the flash flooding last weekend, I was trying to pick my way from Biggin to Newcastle.

I carry Stormscope but no radar, and although it was keeping me out of the very worst of it I was still encountering moderate to severe in heavy rain. I would guess that the Stormscope was protecting me from Severe to Extreme, given the devastation that the storms were later shown to have caused.

Leeming, then Teesside, then Newcastle all turned their weather suppression off for me and were able to give me very accurate descriptions of where the cells were and to make suggestions for routes through (while making it clear that it was my decision.)

The combination of radar and Stormscope was invaluable, and kept us not only safe, but pretty comfortable.

So, many thanks to them (thanks I have already passed to the ATM at Teesside)....it goes to show that these things are possible :ok:

Here is a piccy I took at the time
http://www.artifax.net/misc/530.jpg:ugh: