UPDATE: Wednesday, February 4th, 2015
The Aviation WeatherShare website is well-suited to providing pilots and aviation personnel with essential information needed to maintain safety during hazardous conditions—such as wind speeds aloft and on the ground, satellite imagery, pilot reports, and National Weather Service alerts.
Below is a screenshot of the AWOS/ASOS layer, where the icons show flight rules—orange (IFR) and red (LIFR) icons indicate areas in which navigation using instruments is necessary due to unfavorable conditions, especially low visibility. IFR, or Instrument Flight Rules, and LIFR, or Low Instrument Flight Rules, define visibility and cloud ceiling standards which govern aviation practices under these conditions. Much of the western part of California was operating under LIFR at this time.
Using Aviation WeatherShare’s CCTV feature, which displays near real-time imagery from Caltrans’ cameras across the state, one can confirm that even at ground level there was low visibility in areas of western California:
Of particular usefulness to general pilots is the winds aloft layer, showing a gradient representation of wind speeds at a given elevation. Below is the winds aloft map at 9,000 feet, showing extremely high winds across the north central part of the state.
The goal of the Integration of AWOS with RWIS project is to provide small, underserved rural airfields and heliports comprehensive and accurate meteorological data by integrating data from existing weather stations. The System is expected to improve safety and increase efficiency.
View the Aviation WeatherShare web application at aviation.weathershare.org, and learn more about the project at the Integration of Aviation AWOS with RWIS project page.