Premature Extinction of the Weather Observer: How Much Risk is the Air Force Assuming
Abstract
This research addresses the representativeness of various fielded Automated Meteorological Observing Systems (AMOS) and the policies under which these systems are employed by the United States (U.S.) Air Force. A pool of 1791 surface weather observations were collected from various AMOS over three collection periods within the Republic of Korea and compared to human-augmented observations for the same periods to assess sky condition and visibility hit-rates and performance. Hits within this study are defined as ceilings positively identified within 1,000 feet and visibility assessed within 1 reportable value. The results indicate wide variance in performance of respective FMQ-19, FMQ-23, and TMQ-53 sensors within the same aerodrome with ceiling hit-rates ranging from 69.4 -76.5 and visibility hit-rates ranging from 19.2 -73.1 . When fair weather observations were removed from the total pool, performance dropped to 42.4 -56.5 and 8.1 -35.3 for ceilings and visibility, respectively. Additionally, surface weather observation policy was found to passively accept potentially erroneous AMOS weather reports even when the capability to augment with a human observer exists. Recommendations include modifying policy to pro-actively augment surface weather observations with a human observer in the loop, base-lining fielded AMOS sensors to reduce variability, and simplifying fielded systems toward the goal of minimizing manpower requirements.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Dec 01, 2015
- Accession Number
- AD1040757
Entities
People
- Benjamin J. Fulk
Organizations
- Air Command and Staff College