Weather forecasting while you fly

William Atkins
Thursday, 10 May 2007 01:31

Science - Climate

Current weather forecasting is not very accurate in remote regions of the world, such as the north and south polar regions, deserts, mountains, and oceans, because of a lack of measuring instruments. Such a Boeing-aircraft-weather system could especially help weather forecasting in such remote regions.

The system would also provide better weather forecasting for all regions of the world as several airplanes passing through a local area could compile weather information that would then be cross-referenced at a central location.

Officials with Boeing are suggesting that many commercial and military aircraft be equipped with advanced radar to measure weather conditions, such as wind speed and direction and air temperature, as they crisscross the skies around the Earth. This information could then be relayed to a weather modeling supercomputer, which would update weather models around the world.

The Boeing patent entitled “Measuring wind vectors remotely using airborne radar” U.S. Patient Application 20070069941, issued March 29, 2007, filed September 26, 2005, can be viewed at: http://www.tinyurl.com/2frtnc. The inventors of the patient are Jay S. Pearlman (Port Angeles, Washington) and Brian J. Tillotson (Kent, Washington).