Post-event Reviews

(last updated 10/16/2006)

One of the DLAC 1 students asked if other WFOs do post-event aviation forecast reviews after an LIFR/VLIFR event that wasn't forecast very well. Here are some of the responses we received:

• It is pretty easy to collect a full data set on the WES archiver if you have it set up. I have gathered several dense fog events in this manner over the past year.
• I did about 3 or 4 cases in the Fall and Spring of 2001/2002. If the weather was quiet following an IFR/VLIFR day, I was able to spend about 4 to 5 hours gathering observational, model, and terminal forecast data and post a 1 to 2 page summary. Obviously in such a short amount of time the summary be nothing spectacular, but it could help the aviation forecaster recognize similar situations in the future. These cases were usually VLIFR cases (primarily dense fog) for MCI which are uncommon for this airport.
• Last fall we did a post review here at Detroit of a dense advection fog event. It went really well and got positive feedback from the staff. We have decided to try to do these a couple times a year. I currently have data stored from another dense fog event this past spring. My goal is to present this material to the staff in another post event review this fall. We always have volunteers to work on post severe storm events, but thus far myself and the SOO have been the only ones working on an LIFR event and finding the time to do this has not been easy.

Using volunteers is a great way to get climatologies and post-event analyses done. Students at nearby colleges and universities are often very interested in taking on those projects, particularly if they get course credit for them. And the COMET Outreach Program may be able to provide limited financial support to the university for these kinds of activities through its Partners Projects. For more information, contact Vickie Johnson.