Winter weather, freezing temperatures and snow, wind or thunderstorms can add significantly to a flight crew’s stress level. And obtaining accurate and precise weather information is essential, not only for getting there safely, but also for calculating the optimal route in terms of time saved and fuel burned. Many weather tools are of limited use for flight planning because they focus only on the weather that’s happening on the ground. Nexrad radar does an adequate job of scanning the sky for precipitation, but to get a really good idea of what’s happening aloft there’s nothing like being there.
To improve forecasts along its routes, more than 280 airplanes in Lufthansa’s fleet can now collect weather data for Germany’s National Meteorological Service (Deutscher Wetterdienst). Lufthansa Systems, which is responsible for the coordinating data flow, developed the software used for processing the data that is collected in flight and transferring it back to the ground.
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