Feb. 12--The National Weather Service has scaled back a pilot program designed to reduce weather-related delays at Chicago, New York and Atlanta airports, and the union representing meteorologists is warning that delays will rise at O'Hare and Midway airports as a result.
The National Weather Service Employees Organization said the program, started in 2010, has been credited with cutting by half the number of weather-related flight delays in the Chicago area. Since the program was cut back late last month, the accuracy of aviation forecasts for flights in and out of O'Hare "has already fallen 20 percent," it said.
The weather service acknowledged the pilot program was successful and "met its intended goal." It would not say why the cutbacks were made, but said it was too soon to conclude they will lead to longer waits at O'Hare and Midway.
"We question the methodology used in this analysis," the weather service said in a statement. "Data derived over a two-week period are statistically insignificant."
The program, dubbed "Golden Triangle," was designed to get better, quicker forecasts to aviation officials in Chicago, Atlanta and New York as they made decisions on arrivals and departures. For Chicago, three meteorologists in the Romeoville office were dedicated to providing forecasts and alerts to both airports and the Federal Aviation Administration.
Two of the three meteorologists were removed from the program the end of January and transferred to other positions within the weather service. It said there are no plans "at this time" to replace them. One meteorologist dedicated to aviation forecasts will remain in the Romeoville office, the weather service said.
Other changes include:
--Terminal aerodrome forecasts -- a look at the weather five miles around an airport for the next 24 hours or more -- were updated every two hours during the day and every three hours during the night. They will now be updated every three hours day and night, the weather service said.
--Aviation forecast discussions -- which explain the aviation forecasts in greater detail -- will be updated four times a day instead of 10 times daily and will no longer include "confidence of forecast" information and five-day outlooks, the weather service said.
--An experimental forecast called the "O'Hare Impact-based Decision Support Services Precipitation Outlook," produced from November through March, will no longer be issued.
Despite these changes, the weather service said the Romeoville office will "continue to provide exceptional decision support through aviation weather products and services that meet or exceed FAA's requirements. In fact, the forecast office in Romeoville, in collaboration with the Center Weather Service Unit in Aurora, provide the same baseline aviation services that are provided to all FAA partners nationwide at airports in major metropolitan areas."
