How can SINOPTICA support ATM and ATC during severe weather events?

Abstract

The prediction of rapidly developing thunderstorms in small and localized areas is a challenge for the scientific community. Quickly developing but intense thunderstorms are usually characterized by large hail size, huge amount of rain in a short period, high lightning frequency and strong winds thus potentially capable to affect people and socio-economic activities/infrastructures. These phenomena affect also the flight safety, when aircrafts have to fly through or nearby storms, and the aviation management, or triggering flight re-routing, delays or cancellations. Weather-related flight cancellations and delays have increased over the past two decades in the US and Europe and this trend is going to increase due to the human-induced climate change. The objective of the H2020 SESAR Satellite-borne and IN-situ Observations to Predict The Initiation of Convection for ATM (SINOPTICA) project is to improve the performances of the numerical weather prediction model to nowcast severe weather events locally developed. In this work, we assimilate different ground based and satellite data into the Weather Research and Forecasting model, we nowcast the severe weather in the surrounding of four airports in Italy and we show the innovative approach to integrate the meteorological results with the Air Traffic Control procedures.