Performance evaluation of an automated Terminal Aerodrome Forecast verification tool over Indian Meteorological Watch Offices

Abstract This paper focuses on performance evaluation of an automated Aviation Forecast Verification System (AFVS) over Indian Meteorological Watch Offices, verification has been carried out for TAF as per ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organization) guidelines for four MWO (Meteorological Watch Office) stations viz. Delhi, Chennai, Mumbai, and Kolkata. This automated tool is customized as per International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) guidelines. The performance evaluation of the tool has been carried out for six meteorological parameters including wind direction, wind speed, visibility, precipitation, cloud amount and cloud height for the years 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021 against Meteorological Aerodrome Report (METAR). Validation results with METAR observations show the verification percentage of 93.62%, 99.56%, 99.11%, 83.62%, 67.59%, 54.77% for precipitation, cloud amount, cloud height, wind speed, visibility, and wind direction, respectively. This performance is as per ICAO standard except for wind direction and visibility. Non-compliance of TAF accuracy against ICAO threshold for wind direction and visibility may be attributed to the dynamic nature of these parameters. Furthermore, it has been reported that wind speed, precipitation, cloud amount, and cloud height provide better verification results than ICAO recommended values. Results reported in this study highlights the importance of implementation of an automated verification tool for the efficient verification of TAF for the application in flight management system.