Weathernews America Inc.

There are a number of products that airlines need to feed into their decision-making and flight planning systems:

	Terminal Area Forecasts (TAFs):
	Unlike typical TAFs issued by the National Weather Service, Weathernews TAFs are focused solely on commercial aviation by incorporating knowledge of critical categories of ceilings, visibilities, and other aviation impact variables. These are issued by Weathernews' meteorologists as often as the client needs, and sent to airlines for inclusion in their flight planning systems. Amended forecasts are also issued when necessitated by anticipated changing weather conditions. TAFs provide information about weather at origination, destination, and alternate airports to both dispatchers and flight crews. TAFs also dictate if an alternate airport is needed and help determine how much fuel is required to reach the alternate airport or hold at the destination airport.

	Terminal Forecast Discussions:
	An additional aid provided for airline decision makers are these discussions, which are written in a plain-language, non-technical manner and describe the reasoning behind the Weathernews TAFs at major airports to assist AOC managers on decisions regarding airline system integrity. These are provided to dispatchers, AOCs , and the applicable major airports three or four times a day, with amendments sent as necessary.

	SIGMET (SIGnificant METeorological condition):
	These are severe weather forecasts of thunderstorms, turbulence, icing, and volcanic ash for use by dispatchers and flight crews. They are sent via land-line to the airline when and as often as the Weathernews meteorologist deems necessary. These messages allow for proactive flight planning so that airlines may pre-plan routes to avoid hazardous weather.

	Map Features:
	These are plain-language descriptions of the forecast locations of fronts, low pressure systems, and thunderstorms. They are provided three times a day and detail the areas from the eastern Pacific through the U.S. into the western Atlantic , Caribbean , and Central America . Domestic flight crews typically do not have access to Significant Weather charts, so these descriptions are used instead.

	Tropical Cyclone Advisories:
	These are sent as necessary, depending upon the location and forecast location of the hurricane/typhoon in relation to the airline's routes and major airports. Typically, special weather conferences are set up in advance by the airlines. The advisories are text products accompanied by a graphic indicating the cyclone's past, present, and forecast track and the wind fields associated with it.

	GRIB (GRIdded Binary) input (flight planning data fields):
	Data fields for turbulence, thunderstorms, icing, and volcanic ash and ICAO upper-air forecasts are available to those airlines with flight planning systems that incorporate this data. These fields give a value for intensity and/or coverage of the applicable hazardous weather. The fields are issued at least every four hours, with amendments issued as necessary.

	Deicing forecasts:
	These forecasts are issued twice a day, in the afternoon and evening for the subsequent day, and provide information about the temperature and the type, amount, and timing of winter precipitation. It allows dispatchers, AOC managers, and airport personnel to better plan the staffing requirements for de-icing of aircraft and the likelihood of flight delays and/or cancellations.

	"Hot Cities" forecasts:
	The Weight and Balance group is the primary user of these forecasts, which are issued each evening for the subsequent day and sent via land-line to the airline's AOC. This allows optimum payload/cargo carriage to be achieved during the hot weather season.