Yesterday (7 June 2012) one of the concerns was if high-altitude jet routes (top 30 shown in Fig. 1) would be impacted by convection over southern NY and most of PA. It's easy to see that PA is very busy for high-altitude traffic (Fig. 1). Most of the convection was low-topped and cellular in nature which can be diagnosed using tools within NAWIPS. However, the GOES-R Cloud Height product can quickly provide this information for AWC and FAA collaborations as shown in Fig. 2 (loop of cloud heights between 1632-1945 UTC). Early in the day, convection that developed over southern NY and northern PA was associated with cloud heights between 10-15 kft. As the storms intensified and moved to the south-southeast during the day, heights grew between 20-30 kft with the strongest convection across west-central PA. Since the cloud heights didn't grow above 30 kft in a large area, jet-routes route closures did not occur and impact was minimal. This product can provide excellent situational awareness for flight planners at the FAA Command Center for monitoring the impact of convection to high-altitude jet routes.
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| Fig. 1 Top 30 (by traffic) high-altitude jet routes. |
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| Fig. 2 GOES-13 Cloud Heights between 1632-1945 UTC. |
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