Filling the Gaps in Weather Data for the Transportation Industry A View from the Private Sector’s Perspective Jeff Johnson, CCM DTN Meteorlogix

Customer Experience – Surface Transportation State DOT’s Municipalities County Highway Depts. Airports Private contractors Railways

Data Our Clients Need To Plan Their Tactics Critical Weather Parameters or Products Pavement temperature Start and stop time for precipitation and amount Dense fog potential (<1/4 mile) Heavy rainfall that causes flooding Wind speeds greater than 35 mph Drifting snow on roads Freezing drizzle and freezing rain Frost on pavement Alerts for imminent significant weather Consultations

Where We Need to Fill the Gaps # 1 Precipitation area and amount First 12 hours is the most critical Precipitation field is manually edited using GFE Verification results show a large improvement over raw model input NAM Edited

Where We Need to Fill the Gaps Other Short term (0-12 hrs) critical items Low visibility (traffic speed) Frost, freezing precipitation (accident prevention) Strong winds (drifting snow, falling debris) Flooding rains (blocked roads) Variability across a region (scattered impacts) All Clear Notice (release crews)

What is Needed to Help Fill Gaps? More frequent short term, high resolution model updates out to 12 hours Better depiction of mesoscale precipitation areas Real-time reporting of snow amounts as the snow falls More visibility reporting locations More reporting of current road conditions

Clear Communication of the Weather Forecast is Imperative DTN MDSS Solution - Simple display Integrated current and forecast weather Treatment recommendations Hour by hour detail

DTN MDSS Hourly Forecast View

FHWA TREATMENT RECOMMENDATIONS

Air Bridge Road Bridge Road Frost Snow, Next 24 Hours Snow, Hours Tonight’s Lows TableGraphs Snow likely continuing through mid-day tomorrow with accumulations of 2-3”. Overnight winds gusting to 25mph. Today’s high: 40 Tonight’s low: 32 GRAPHICAL View of Data 24-Hr Forecast Summary

Consultation with a Meteorologist Rain / wet snow mix and high winds pummeling NE 12:00am EDT Late winter storm will lash New England with rain of up to 3-4 inches mixed with heavy wet snow. Snow will predominate in New York and Maine today with rain changing to snow throughout the New England area overnight. Winds gusting to 40-50mph will lash the entire area today. There is also potential for overnight temps to dip to freezing but pavement temps should stay above freezing with the possible exception of Maine. The storm will persist into Thursday with winds highest along the coast, and More … Forecast animation Click Northeast Transportation What are the chances that the rain will freeze tonight? Tony DeAngelo, Framingham, MA, 4/16, 3:14 EDT In the MA area we don’t expect any freezing rain as the ground / pavement temps are warm enough. Jeff Johnson, DTN Meteorologist, 4/16, 3:25 EDT With these high winds how severe is blowing snow expected to be? Thomas Browne, Syracuse NY, 4/16, 3:31 EDT Public Forum / Ask DTN Meteorologist Post Comment Select Region: Northeast Southeast Midwest West Meteorologist: Jim Foerster

Decision Support Products for High Impact Events – Example from Another Industry Hurricane damage estimates Prediction of power outages based upon track forecast for tropical cyclones

Damage Estimates by County