The National Weather Service, which launched the Graphical Forecasts for Aviation tool for the continental U.S. in October 2017, recently expanded the coverage area to include the Gulf of Mexico, the Bahamas, the Caribbean, and the New York Oceanic region, including Bermuda.
The GFA lets pilots view current weather observations and forecasts. Pilots can see up to 17 hours of past observations to help them spot trends and can look up to 17 hours into the future for all of the forecasts, which are updated hourly.
“The forecasts cover all the old text-based favorites, including ceilings, cloud bases and tops, visibility, precipitation, winds, ice and turbulence,” said John Kosak, weather program manager for the National Business Aviation Association‘s Air Traffic Services. “Operators can move through the altitudes in several of the categories, and can zoom in and out to see detail in specific areas of the map.”
During a recent experiment at the NWS’ Aviation Weather Center in Kansas City, Missouri, general aviation pilots gave positive feedback about the GFA, saying the enhanced information will improve their ability to make critical decisions, according to NBAA officials.
However, the pilots expressed a need for more user-friendly capabilities, including making the tool easier to navigate on mobile devices and explaining when and how they might want to use the tool, NBAA officials noted.
Aviation Weather Center officials told the pilots they will continuously upgrade the GFA to better serve general aviation, NBAA officials added.
According to Kosak, who represents business aviation in the GFA rollout process as a member of the FAA’s Collaborative Decision-Making Weather Evaluation Team, said more coverage area expansions are in the works. The NWS has begun experimenting with the GFA for much of the Pacific, including Hawaii, on a testbed web page. Experimentation for Alaska is expected to start in 2021, he added.