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Newsletter No. 5, April 2025
Newsletter Spotlight - Cost RecoveryWebinar Recap, December 2024 Submitted by the Expert Team for Services for Aviation (ET-AVI) for Regional Association IV.
ET-AVI hosted their fifth webinar in December 2024 with a focus on Cost Recovery for Aeronautical Meteorological Services. Presentations and recordings are available on the ET-AVI websiteIn the aviation industry, accurate and timely meteorological services are critical for ensuring safety, efficiency, and operational reliability. Providing these services requires significant investment in advanced technology, skilled personnel, and robust infrastructure.Cost recovery can be an important means to sustain and enhance the quality of meteorological services. By ensuring that the financial burden of these services is equitably shared among stakeholders—such as airlines, airports, and government agencies—cost recovery fosters a self-sustaining system that supports continual improvements and innovation. It also promotes transparency and accountability, aligning service delivery with user needs while adhering to international standards, such as those set by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO).Without effective cost recovery mechanisms, meteorological agencies may face budget constraints, compromising their ability to provide the reliable and high-quality data that aviation operations demand. This webinar explores the potential significance of cost recovery in maintaining the financial sustainability and operational excellence of meteorological services, and its role in supporting the aviation industry.Presentations and Speakers:Mr. Jun Ryuzaki is a Technical Officer of Meteorology with the Air Navigation Bureau with the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). He joined ICAO in March 2021, after many years experience contributing to international expert groups under ICAO and WMO framework for the enhancement of aeronautical meteorological services. As the Secretary of the ICAO Meteorology Panel (METP), he is enthusiastic about facilitating the development of future meteorological service standards to support safety risk assessments and operational decision making by users. His presentation, Basics and Guidelines on Cost Recovery for Aeronautical Meteorological Services gave an overview of ICAO’s working structure, standards, and documentation regarding cost recovery while providing context of where meteorological services fit in as part of the broader air navigation services. ------------------------------------- Kent Johnson retired two years ago after 35 years with the Meteorological Service of Canada. His passion and focus were almost always on aeronautical meteorology. He has led numerous activities for the World Meteorological Organization, including training, the development of competency assessment tools and long-term planning. He was responsible for costing of aeronautical meteorological services in Canada and for negotiation of a cost-recovery agreement with NAV CANADA, the private air navigation service provider in Canada. Kent’s presentation, entitled ‘What is Incremental in Costing of Aeronautical Meteorological Services?’, provided an overview of WMO Document 904 on Cost Recovery and offered practical methodologies aimed at assessing the costing of meteorological services to aviation. ------------------------------------- Kenneth Kerr is the Science and Technology Officer of the Caribbean Meteorological Organization, headquartered in Trinidad and Tobago, and is also Chair of the RA IV Services Committee. He has over 30 years of experience working alongside operational meteorology experts. As the Science and Technology Officer, he is responsible for providing technical and scientific support to 16 Caribbean NMHSs. His presentation, entitled Calculating the Costing of Aviation Meteorological Services, gave a practical example of an attempt to develop a cost recovery model by the Trinidad and Tobago Met Authority. It includes lessons learned and highlights limitations and gaps in the model. ------------------------------------- Rafael Cabrera is a meteorologist with Dominican Institute of Meteorology (INDOMET) in the and an instructor in Aeronautical Meteorology. He is also a member of our Expert Team for Services for Aviation (ET-AVI) in Regional Association IV. His presentation entitled Cost Recovery: Example from Dominican Republic highlighted successful examples of private-public funding partnerships that have improved atmospheric monitoring in the country which have likewise improved meteorological services for aviation.
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News You Can Use: NAV CANADA’s New Aviation Meteorology Reference
From freezing rain storms and snowstorms to wind shear and thunderstorms, when flying through Canada’s airspace pilots can encounter a wide variety of weather systems and events. While it is impossible to predict mother nature’s exact moves with perfect accuracy, the decision whether or not an aircraft should take to the skies and the safest and most efficient routes to take requires careful planning and consideration by a large network of aviation industry professionals.
Helping to ensure that everyone involved in that decision-making process has a common understanding of weather terms significant to the aviation industry, Canada's air navigation service provider, in partnership with experts from across Canada's aviation community, created a new and free online resource called the NAV CANADA Aviation Meteorology (AvMet) Reference. In addition to providing users with meteorological explanations curated for the aviation industry, each weather term ties back to the resultant impacts experienced by various operational users.
“We explain the science behind the weather, tie it back to historical events through the use of past forecast products, what ended up being observed, and discuss potential impacts on everything from a Cessna to a Boeing 777 and beyond,” explains Sophie Splawinski, NAV CANADA’s Manager of Network Aviation Weather and project lead. "Our industry is built upon highly specialized, but often compartmentalized expertise. Breaking down these barriers and providing a common understanding of weather and how it can affect us all differently will increase safety, both on the ground and in the air, and elevate our ability to work together more efficiently.”
Erin Pierce, co-lead on the Weather Applications team, National Operations Centre manager, and former chief dispatcher at Jazz Aviation says this tool was born out of a need identified through conversations with pilots, flight dispatchers, and air navigation service professionals. “We realized there isn’t a great deal of industry cross-training happening between weather forecasters and the people who are making decisions based on those forecasts. Our project aims to bridge that gap by connecting subject matter experts from a variety of fields to elevate everyone’s knowledge organically,” adds Pierce.
With a focus on delivering the best possible product, the project team collaborated with industry experts who work on the frontlines of aviation industry operations. Weather content was developed by meteorologists within the Meteorological Service of Canada. These experts are responsible for issuing a variety of aviation products that are used daily by aviation industry professionals, many of which are available on NAV CANADA’s Collaborative Flight Planning Services website.
In parallel, the Aviation Meteorology Reference’s aviation content comes directly from the experts who work in the field. Contributors include both large and small commercial carriers, general aviation pilots, certified flight instructors, airport authorities, air navigation service professionals within both instrument flight rules (IFR) and visual flight rules (VFR) roles, and flight service specialists. The website is the first resource of its kind to merge both operational and meteorological information together in one place.
“Our country is vast and experiences a massive range of high-impact weather throughout the year,” says Jessica Howell, Senior Program Meteorologist with the Meteorological Service of Canada. “As we’ve witnessed through severe weather events like Hurricane Fiona, the southern Ontario and Quebec derecho, heat domes, and ice storms, weather and our changing climate can have significant and long-term impacts on Canadians’ safety and their communities. The more we can do to understand and educate each other about weather and climate, the better prepared we’ll be to mitigate their current and evolving impacts.”
The Aviation Meteorology Reference is one product that has been recognized by the industry as having applicability across the entire community. The Reference is now used within Transport Canada's Annual Pilot Training Program under CAR STD 421.05(2)(c) and has been incorporated in on-boarding, annual recurrent training, and classroom environments by flight schools, flight dispatch schools, commercial airline pilots ,and dispatchers, as well as being used on personal time by many general aviation pilots. Internally at NAV CANADA the Aviation Meteorology Reference has become a supplemental resource to all operational streams, including ATC, FSS and operational management personnel, as well as a source for general knowledge to the company as a whole. This exemplifies the level of success achieved with all four of NAV CANADA's pillars at the core: safety, expertise, partnerships, and innovation.
Finally, AVMET is being recognized internationally for the difference it has made from a safety perspective by elevating knowledge of not just fundamentals of weather (and how they are displayed in an operational setting from a forecast/observations perspective) but also how they impact operations across the aviation realm. The Reference has been shortlisted for this year’s CANSO’s Global Safety Award, underscoring the strength of industry-wide collaboration with frontline experts and the successes that can stem from these partnerships.
Figure 1: The Aviation Meteorology Reference website offers a multi-faceted description of phenomena such as the Cold Front. It offers both the meteorology perspective (shown here), as well as the aviation perspective (shown in Figure 2).
Figure 2: The Aviation Meteorology Reference website offers a multi-faceted description of phenomena such as the Cold Front. It offers both the meteorology perspective (shown in Figure 1), as well as the aviation perspective (shown here).
The project team is also looking to continue building content in the future, in continued collaboration with the aviation industry. As such, subject matter experts interested in joining are asked to reach out to the team at WAT@navcanada.ca.
Explore the Aviation Meteorology Reference
Text was provided by NAV CANADA communications based on information from Sophie Splawinski, NAV CANADA’s project lead for AVMET and Network Aviation Weather Manager.
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Two-stage discontinuation of Technical Regulations (WMO-No. 49), Volume II, Meteorological Service for International Air Navigation
Submitted by Greg Brock In April 2017, the Secretary-General of WMO and the Secretary General of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) convened a bilateral meeting. One of the discussion points pertained to efficiency and avoiding duplication of efforts within and across the sister agencies of the United Nations.Recognizing that the Technical Regulations (WMO-No. 49), Volume II, Meteorological Service for International Air Navigation represents, to a great extent, is a reproduction of ICAO Annex 3 to the Convention on International Civil Aviation. It was proposed to consider discontinuing WMO-No. 49, Volume II while maintaining ICAO Annex 3 as the main regulatory publication for all providers and users.Subsequently, through the (former) Commission for Aeronautical Meteorology and the (current) Standing Committee on Services for Aviation, and with the endorsement of the World Meteorological Congress in 2019 and 2023, WMO is proceeding with the two-stage discontinuation of WMO-No. 49, Volume II.For more information please visit: https://community.wmo.int/en/activity-areas/aviation/resources/tech-regs-v2-discontinuationGreg Brock is the Section Chief for the Services for Aviation in the Services Department of the WMO in Geneva, Switzerland.
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US National Weather Service Aviation Weather Center Changes Slated for 27 January
Submitted by Jennifer Stroozas The US National Weather Service (NWS) will implement changes to some products and services on 27 January 2025. The legacy Tropical Area Forecast (FA) product will be retired in favor of the Graphical Forecasts for Aviation (GFA) on AviationWeather.gov. The FA is an abbreviated, plain-language forecast of specified weather phenomena, covering a geographical area designated by the FAA and produced by the NWS. GFA provides a more detailed and frequently updated graphical forecast over the same area. In addition, in collaboration with the World Area Forecast Centre (WAFC) London, the UK Met Office, WAFC Washington National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is developing the next generation of WAFS SigWx forecast charts. These changes will also take effect 27 January 2025.Please see this AWC link with additional details:https://aviationweather.gov/help/upcoming/Jennifer Stroozas is the Warning Coordination Meteorologist at the US National Weather Service’s Aviation Weather Center located in Kansas City, MO focusing on outreach, education, and partner liaison work. Her expertise is in aviation weather, fire weather, interagency collaboration, customer service, and decision support services.
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A year of progress in Aeronautical Meteorology
Submitted by Andrea Henderson
As we look back on 2024, the Standing Committee on Services for Aviation (SC-AVI) reflects on a year marked by significant achievements and forward momentum. Since the leadership confirmation at SERCOM-3 in March, our community has been actively advancing the field of aeronautical meteorology.
Key highlights from 2024:
 The team achieved some publication milestones, including: the new (2023) edition of the Guide to Services for Aviation (WMO-No. 732); the Expert Team on Weather and Climate Science for Aviation Applications (ET-WCS) completed work on the Compendium of Climate Change Impacts to Aviation with publication forthcoming; and the Executive Council endorsed the outcomes from the Eighth International Workshop on Volcanic Ash (IWVA-8).- The Aeronautical Meteorology Scientific Conference, held in Geneva from 21-25 October 2024 was the first face-to-face conference since the COVID-19 pandemic. It welcomed approximately 150 attendees from all WMO Regional Associations, featuring over 80 oral and poster presentations and 6 panel discussions. The conference concluded with a set of three key recommendations to guide future work.
- A trial of the Joint Aviation Forum between SC-AVI and the ICAO MET Panel Management Group commenced successfully, providing a platform for informal discussions on shared interests. Topics included service delivery transformation, succession planning, and the next generation of leaders in aeronautical meteorology, and turbulence. The trial will continue into 2025.
 A highly successful writing workshop of the Task Team on the Long-term Plan for Aeronautical Meteorology (TT-LTP) demonstrated the value of bringing experts together to achieve significant outcomes. This collaborative effort will guide the ongoing development of our long-term strategic plans for aeronautical meteorology.- The third meeting of the AvRDP2 Scientific Steering Committee, hosted by the Met Office, 16-18 September, reviewed progress on setting up experiments for new impact-based convection nowcasting and forecasting capabilities over two chosen air routes. More details on AvRDP2 can be found here.
Priorities for the next 6 months include:
- Maturation of the update to the Long-term Plan for Aeronautical Meteorology, ensuring it meets the evolving needs of the aviation sector.
- Finalizing the report on the Proceedings of the 2024 Aeronautical Meteorological Scientific Conference, capturing the insights and recommendations that emerged.
- Initializing competency framework(s) for personnel at Volcanic Ash Advisory Centres (VAAC), State Volcano Observatories (SVO), Space Weather Centres (SWXC), and/or Tropical Cyclone Advisory Centres (TCAC).
 As we prepare for SC-AVI-4 in November 2025, our focus will turn toward comprehensive progress reporting on all the activities and deliverables of the SC-AVI subsidiary bodies.
Stay connected with us through the WMO Services for Aviation global newsletters, issued twice per year (archived here). To subscribe, please send an email to aviation@wmo.int. WMO also publishes relevant news items regularly here.
Andrea Henderson is the National Manager for National Security and Space Operations in the Bureau of Meteorology, overseeing critical operations such as Defence Weather Services, the Australian Space Weather Forecasting Centre, and spaceflight operations. Andrea is also the Chair of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Standing Committee on Services for Aviation (SC-AVI). She has over 20 years of experience in service delivery, workplace training, competency development, project and change management, people management, business continuity, and regulatory compliance.
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Expansion of the U.S. AWC Graphical Forecast for Aviation (GFA)
Submitted by Jonathan Leffer The United States National Weather Service (NWS) has operationally expanded the GFA tool across the Pacific Ocean, similar to the earlier expansion over the Caribbean Sea. GFA includes a set of web-based displays that provide automated aviation forecast model data in addition to a suite of observational data. While the tool is tailored for aviation users, public and marine users will also see benefits.The GFA provides users with timely and consistent data It's a comprehensive suite of models, observations (METAR, PIREP, satellite, radar), and map options to increase situational awareness. The GFA expansion across the Pacific Ocean, particularly in the low levels, will aid the aviation community with safety and decision-making, especially since the vast oceanic areas have little to no aviation forecasts and observations. The “Map Options” menu enables the user to customize the display, including the base map selection, specific data displayed, and map opacity, scales, and density. Overlays include airports, Flight Information Region (FIR) boundaries, and additional map features. More detail is also revealed with progressive zooming and individual layers can be turned on or off independently.The GFA combines Open Layers displays of multiple weather parameters on a single webpage, with the additional option to view static imagery. The Open Layers environment also offers more core functionality and support for mobile devices The product covers the conterminous United States (CONUS) and the Gulf of Mexico, the Caribbean, and portions of the Atlantic Ocean from the surface up to Flight Level 480 (FL480) or approximately 48,000 ft. above Mean Sea Level (MSL). The newest expansion covers Hawaii, portions of the Pacific Ocean from Midway to the Aleutians to the coastal waters of Central and northern South America (see Fig. 1). Figure 1. Domain of the operational GFA). The expansion covers Hawaii and portions of the Pacific Ocean from Midway to the Aleutians to the coastal waters of Central and northern South America.A tutorial is available at https://aviationweather.gov/gfa/help/#tutorialThe GFA is available at https://aviationweather.gov/gfa/#obsJonathan Leffler is the Domestic Operations Branch Chief at the US National Weather Service’s Aviation Weather Center located in Kansas City, MO. His expertise is in aviation weather, leadership, quality management systems, and decision support services.
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News you can use: Refreshed AviationWeather.gov!
Submitted by Jennifer Stroozas
Last year the U.S. Aviation Weather Center (AWC) transitioned to the new AviationWeather.gov site. This redesign was needed since the site was originally developed 15-20 years ago and many technological advances have occurred since then. One reason for the transition was so users could access the website with mobile devices - a mobile-first approach to make sure that it will look good and behave consistently whether it’s being shown on a mobile phone, tablet, desktop computer, or large screen display.
Menus are now better streamlined to make navigation more intuitive while preserving individual user configuration. This change improves supportability behind the scenes through modernized code, combining tools that were previously separate.
Here are the top 6 biggest changes to AviationWeather.gov: - Bookmarks from the old version of AviationWeather.gov need to be updated. Here’s a link to a bookmark transition guide.
- Most users will no longer need an account.
- Users will no longer have to navigate to two different locations for the Helicopter Emergency Medical Services Tool (HEMS) tool. It has been integrated into the main Graphical Forecasts for Aviation (GFA) interface and is now called GFA-Low Altitude. It is available by clicking on the helicopter icon in GFA.
- The website can also be run in light or dark mode like many other mobile apps allowing for user preference.
- Many individual products have been moved into the interactive GFA display. This allows users to overlay fronts, observations, and forecast products with full-screen display capability based on user needs.
The new site design incorporates years of customer feedback from the aviation community including feature requests and general comments about the user experience. Early versions were also formally evaluated as part of the Aviation Weather Testbed. During these evaluations, social scientists from the FAA’s Aviation Weather Demonstration and Evaluation (AWDE) Services group collected valuable feedback from a variety of users; that feedback helped refine the website during its experimental period.
AWC also has a library of YouTube tutorials available. The website itself also has extensive help pages which can be viewed by clicking the “?” in the upper right corner. Information will continue to be communicated via social media platforms as well. Be sure to follow us and share our content to keep the pilots and aviation community members in your area up to date on the latest changes.
YouTube Library
https://www.youtube.com/@nwsawc207/videos
Jennifer Stroozas is the Warning Coordination Meteorologist at the US National Weather Service’s Aviation Weather Center located in Kansas City, MO focusing on outreach, education, and partner liaison work. Her expertise is in aviation weather, fire weather, interagency collaboration, customer service, and decision support services.
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Feedback for ET-AVI We want to hear from you! What can ET-AVI do for you and your organization? If you have feedback to share; suggestions for activities related to services for aviation; newsletter articles or future webinar topics, please fill out this short questionnaire:
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Archived Webinars and Newsletters
The RA-IV ET-AVI hosts two webinars and two newsletters each year covering aviation topics pertinent to our region - North America, Central America and the Caribbean. Below are links to past material.
December 2024 - Cost Recovery
June 2024 - Standards - Hurricanes/Tropical Storms - Satellite Applications
November 2023 5-day Aviation Workshop - SIGMETs - TAFs - QMS
July 2023 - Quality Management Systems (QMS)
December 2022 - AMDAR - Observing - Cost Recovery - IWXXM - International SIGMET Coordination
July 2022 - ICAO-NACC - QMS - WMO Aviation Moodle Training Portal - IWXXM - Relationship Building with Aviation Users - IDSS - Global Turbulence Product
Past Newsletters - January 2023; August 2023; February 2024; August 2024.
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Reminders & Coming Events
Upcoming Events: |
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Resources WMO Regional Association IV (RA-IV) Website - Highlights all WMO activities for North America, Central America and the Caribbean (RA-IV)WMO RA-IV ET-AVI Website - The official WMO website for the RA-IV Expert Team on Services for Aviation (ET-AVI). It includes the Terms of Reference (ToR) which steers the activities undertaken by our team.WMO Services for Aviation (SC-AVI) Site - an overview of WMO resources and activities related to aviation and meteorology internationally.WMO Aviation Training Moodle Site - This Moodle training portal is provided and maintained by the Expert Team on Education, Training, and Competency (ET-ETC) of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Standing Committee on Services for Aviation (SC-AVI). The ET-ETC comprises aeronautical meteorology experts from around the world nominated by WMO Member States and Territories.WMO Long-term Plan for Aeronautical Meteorology (2019) - The long-term plan for aeronautical meteorology (LTP-AeM) is intended to provide a framework upon which aeronautical meteorological service providers (AMSPs) of WMO Members in particular, and the broader meteorology and aviation communities in general, can plan a progressive transformation from a conventional “product-centric” approach to a modern “information-centric” approach to service provision for aviation through to 2030 and beyond. |
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 RA-IV Expert Team on Aviation ServicesCo-Chairs: Mike Graf - US NOAA National Weather Service &Heather Smith - Environment and Climate Change CanadaEditor: Lora Wilson - US NOAA National Weather Service |
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