SIGMET / AIRMET

[Hardy Heinlin]

Good morning,

as far as I can see, the USA is the only country where the AIRMET format is used. As AIRMETs are only used for "moderate" phenomena (below SIGMET level), are there any jet operators in the US that use AIRMETs in their flight plans in addition to SIGMETs?


Regards,

|-|ardy

[cagarini]

AIRMET are Worldwide Hardy.

Here at the Portuguese MetOffice we produce AIRMET too. FL150 is the higher ( AIRMET and GAMET refer to lower levels, bellow 150 in PT, 100 in other parts of the World ).

Usually AIRMET complement information not provided in a GAMET for specif phenomena. AFAIK used mostly by GA, and operations at the lower FLs as you wrote.

See ICAO Annex 3 Chapter 6 or here:


https://www.icao.int/EURNAT/EUR%20and%20NAT%20Documents/EUR%20Documents/014%20-%20EUR%20SIGMET%20and%20AIRMET%20Guide/EUR%20Doc%2014%20%20(EN)%20-%20Edition%202,%202010%20-%20rev%2029Oct2018.pdf

[Hardy Heinlin]

Thanks. What I actually mean by "format" is the method how the phenomenon location is described in the USA; they don't use the lat/lon system as per the ICAO standard but place-bearing/distance from navaids. They don't start with the keyword "WI" ("within") but with "FROM" or "BOUNDED BY", followed by a sequence of navaid related place-bearing/distance points. I need to develop an extra parser for this, with nav database search and cache functions too. (The parser for the ICAO standards is finished.)

I just don't want to invite future PSX users to paste hundreds of AIRMETs into PSX just because of some moderate turbulence. SIGMETs are OK.


|-|ardy

[Hardy Heinlin]

Hi all,

do PFPX and Simbrief include non-ICAO SIMGETs anyway?


By "non-ICAO" I mean this location format:

... FROM YSC TO 40ENE ALB TO 20SE HNK TO 60WSW HNK TO 30WSW SLT
TO 50W ERI TO 40NNE ERI TO 20SSE YOW TO YSC ...


By "ICAO" I mean this location format:

... WI N4245 W00015 - N4700 W00015 - N4715 E00100 - N4230 E00100 -
N4245 W00015 ...


Regards,

|-|ardy


My current test sources:

https://www.aviationweather.gov/sigmet/data
http://www.flightwork.com/weather/sigmet.html

[G-CIVA]

Hardy,

PFPX snapshot taken from my PFPX which is fed with live real world WX updates from the PFPX WX server about 2 mins ago...





Regards

Steve

[Hardy Heinlin]

Thanks, Steve. Well, these are ICAO regions. These SIGMETs are always in ICAO format. It would be interesting to see the USA. The PFPX map probably looks similar to the map at https://skyvector.com

Fortunately, in this moment now, it's the first time since I've started to work on this subject that a SIGMET is being displayed in the USA (near Seattle):

WSUS06 KKCI 180532
SFOO WS 180532
SIGMET OSCAR 1 VALID UNTIL 180932
SIGMET 
WA OR AND CSTL WTRS
FROM HQM TO 40SSE SEA TO 20S OED TO 90W OED TO HQM
OCNL SEV TURB BLW 120. DUE TO STG LOW LVL WNDS AND STG UDDFS AND
LLWS. RPTD BY ACFT. CONDS CONTG BYD 0932Z.

I assume, if you were to make a flight plan now across this area, PFPX would include this in the OFP.


Regards,

|-|ardy

[cagarini]

These americans really like to break rules... :-/

[Hardy Heinlin]

SIGMET parsing in general is a nightmare :-) Even in ICAO regions there are undocumented "dialects", like using decimal fractions of a degree instead of minutes, etc. (funny effects on Skyvector's maps). Meanwhile I even started to add filters for common typos and non-existent spaces where spaces should be, etc.

[G-CIVA]

Thanks, Steve.

I assume, if you were to make a flight plan now across this area, PFPX would include this in the OFP.

No problem - always happy to assist.

If only it were that simple...unless I am missing something...

Users have to first select the FIRs containing the SIGMETS then paste them to a virtual scratchpad before printing to a separate document from the flightplan, hopefully PFPX will become sufficiently intuitive in time to automate this process.

[Hardy Heinlin]

Ah, users paste them manually into their OFP anyway? OK, no problem. So this stuff is even independent of any flight planner software, and we can solely refer to skyvector.com or aviationweather.gov, for example.

In my tests I just copy the entire global SIGMET text page from one of the international websites and paste the text into a new SIGMET text editor page in PSX, and thus the whole current SIGMET world is injected into PSX. They also appear on the Instructor map. Similar to the new "wind & OAT corridor" text editor, users can edit the SIGMET text blocks and design their own weather scenarios in "SIGMET" language.

It works very well so far. But my parser needs further fine-tuning for all those common typos and "dialects". This stuff is actually a case of Artificial Intelligence algorithms (automatic learning by doing).


|-|ardy

[Hardy Heinlin]

Examples:

(Click on pic to enlarge)








|-|

[Gary Oliver]

Hardy,

This looks even more pleasing!

Do the SIGMETS get downloaded by PSX or is this something we need to copy and paste into the box (or of course inject from PSX Dispatch into the relevant variable)?


Ignore me... I just read above.  PSX Dispatch already handles the data so I will add a feature into BACARS to populate the relevant variable when the feature becomes available.


Cheers
G

[G-CIVA]

An elegant solution as ever Hardy.

[Will]

Looks really good.

[Hardy Heinlin]

Does anybody know the update interval of this web site?

https://www.aviationweather.gov/sigmet/intl

I couldn't find any hint. It doesn't always agree with the SIGMETs on Skyvector.com.

Originally I wanted to suggest to manually copy & paste the SIGMET text page over to PSX. But now I'm planning to implement an autodownload option. The SIGMET world data is not so big actually. There are typically just 50 to 90 SIGMETs around the globe. There's always a large complex thunderstorm show in South America. Great stuff :-) And always many small volcanic ash areas at the Pacific coastlines.


|-|ardy

[masselli]

Hardy,

Here is some contact info for that website.  I had contacted them a couple years ago about downloading some weather-related data.

Mike Bettwy
Warning Coordination Meteorologist
Aviation Weather Center (NOAA/NWS/NCEP)
7220 NW 101st Terrace
Kansas City, MO 64153
Office: 816-584-7239
Mobile: 410-703-1817 / 913-626-9386
mike.bettwy@noaa.gov

-Mark

[Hardy Heinlin]

Thanks, Mark. ... I'll wait a little; maybe the info is already there somewhere, before I bother him with such a trivial question :-)


|-|ardy

[Jeroen Hoppenbrouwers]

And he's probably furloughed, anyway... our whole professional operation is grinding to a halt at work as the FAA isn't doing anything right now. We are canceling aircraft installations planned during C-checks and so forth. Major schedule headaches.

Hoppie

[Hardy Heinlin]

I will add a checkbox:

[x] When downloading METARs also download SIGMETs

[Hardy Heinlin]

I'm getting the impression some SIGMET writers insert typos intentionally.

Find the error:

WSSN31 ESWI 102216
ESAA SIGMET 7 VALID 102245/110245 ESSA-
ESAA SWEDEN FIR SEV TURB FCST WI N6230 EO1130 - N6230 EO1400 - N6845 EO2130 -
N6915 E02000 - N6800 E01645 - N6230 E01130 SFC/FL070 STNR NC=


Skyvector's parser autocorrected it internally. Some errors are such that Skyvector shows the area incorrectly while my parser can autocorrect it, and with some other errors it's vice versa. One just cannot read the mind of the SIGMET writer. E.g. W1755 (5th digit missing) could mean W17550 or W01755. One could make a distance plausibility check, but this cannot always work either ...