SINOPTICA BROCHURE

S I N O PT I CA

SINO I CA S IPT NO PT I CA SINO PT I CA

Satellite-borne and IN-situ Observations to Predict The Initiation of Convection for ATM

Satellite-borne and IN-situ Observations to Satellite-borne and IN-situ Observations Predict The Initiation of Convection for ATM

to Predict The Initiation of Convection for Satellite-borne andATM IN-situ Observations to Predict The Initiation of Convection for ATM

ThisSESAR projectJoint has received funding from the SESAR Joint Undertaking is project has received funding from the Undertaking under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation der the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement [892362] ogramme under grant agreement [892362]

Joint Undertaking ceived funding from the SESAR Joint Undertaking and innovation nh Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation

the SESAR Joint Undertaking 20 research and innovation 2362]

The challenge The solution The innovation Into practice

S I N O PT I CA

Photo by form PxHere

The challenge

The prediction of rapidly developing thunderstorms in small and localized areas is a challenge for the scientific community.

Quickly developing but intense thunderstorms often damage properties and can pose risks to people’s lives. Those events are usually characterized by large hail size, huge amount of rain in a short period, high lightning frequency and strong winds. Such phenomena affect also the flight safety, e.g. when aircrafts have to fly through or nearby storms, and the aviation management, e.g. triggering flight re-routing, delays or cancellations.

Weather-related flight cancellations and delays have increased over the past two decades in the US and Europe and this trend is going to increase due to the climate change.

The consequences are inconveniences for the passengers, damages to the fuselages, increase of the flight costs, higher pollution, money loss for the flight companies, delays and damages of goods.

The solution

Satisfactory Arrival Manager performance can only be achieved when integrating highly accurate adverse weather areas around the airports. Thus, temporally and spatially high resolved predictions have to be integrated into the air traff ic managers’ and controllers’ system.

Photo Credits: https://www.ilmessaggero.it/ - Maltempo, atterraggio d’emergenza a Malpensa

The innovation

The SINOPTICA prediction algorithm for the first time merges a radar based nowcasting algorithm in synergy with a very high resolution version of WRF model that assimilates GNSS, lightnings data, in situ weather stations and radar reflectivity to achieve the needed performance in forecasting severe convection.

SINOPTICA develops a short-term forecasting system of severe thunderstorms affecting airports and together with the air traffic managers deploys new strategies to adjust the flights trajectories avoiding the adverse weather areas.

Into practice

Example of severe weather predicted over Milano Malpensa airport (black circle) the 11th of May 2019 and flight trajectories diverted (white lines). The large quantity of hail over the runaways caused the closure of the airport for 40 minutes and some flights delay.

Nine planes were diverted to other airports. The heavy precipitation produced several floods in the city of Milan, the strong winds caused the fall of trees and billboards.

Low rain intensity

High rain intensity

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PT I CA

borne and IN-situ Observations to he Initiation of Convection for ATM

S I N O PT I CA

S I N O PT I CA

Satellite-borne and IN-situ Observations to Predict The Initiation of Convection for ATM

S I N O PT I CA

www.sinoptica-project.eu

Satellite-borne and IN-situ Observations Predict The Initiation of Convection for A

SINOPTICA H2020 @SINOPTICA_H2020

AC I TP O N I S

Joint Undertaking h and innovation

This project has received funding from the SESAR Joint Undertaking under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement [892362]

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