National Weather Service Improves Icing Awareness Product

The U.S. National Weather Service (NWS) is offering an improved icing awareness product that has cockpit-accessible graphical hourly updates on in-flight icing.

The service, developed by researchers at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, and dubbed Current Icing Product or CIP, incorporates more detailed observations and more advanced prediction models than its previous 2002 version.  This includes displays that rate areas by icing severity and the probability of encountering icing conditions with selectable altitudes up to 29,000 feet.

Besides CIP's safety contribution, the NWS believes it can reduce costs by reducing unnecessary detours around areas where icing threats aren't present for properly equipped aircraft.

One can find the CIP's interactive display here.  The NWS says CIP is meant to supplement but not replace its traditional AIRMET (airmen's meteorological Information) that is issued every six hours.  12-06-2006.

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