The Thirty-Third Meeting of the Meteorology Group (METG/33) of the
European Aviation System Planning Group (EASPG) was held at the ICAO EUR/NAT Regional
Office in Paris from 19 to 22 September 2023. The meeting was attended by 97
experts from 43 States as well as 5 International Organizations.
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The meeting noted that the implementation of Aviation System Block Upgrade (ASBU) thread elements AMET Block 0 decreased from 93 to 92% this past year, while the implementation of the ICAO Meteorological Information Exchange Model (IWXXM) as part of ASBU thread elements AMET Block 1 increased from 98% to 99%, noting that this was in part due to translation services being provided by Regional OPMET Centres at no cost. The translation services may be extended for one more year; however, States that have not implemented IWXXM are proposed to be added to the list of air navigation deficiencies in the EUR Region (subject to EASPG/5 approval). During the past year, inter-regional exchange of IWXXM data has been achieved between the APAC, EUR and MID Regions. Further progress is needed in this regard with other regions in order to have certain OPMET data in IWXXM format available globally that will assist in enabling System Wide Information Management (SWIM) services and consumption of these services.
World Area Forecast System (WAFS) upgrades (increased horizontal, vertical and temporal resolutions) and SWIM-compliant delivery system are expected to be available in the next year and thus States and SADIS (Secure Aviation Data Information Service) users encouraged to participate in trying out the SWIM-compliant SADIS APIs (Application Programming Interface) once the beta services are available. States and SADIS users were also encouraged to prepare their systems for visualizing and creating charts from the new WAFS SIGWX data sets in IWXXM format by using test data sets available.
An overview of the Quantitative Volcanic Ash (QVA) forecasting provision was provided to the meeting (expected to be recommended practice by all volcanic ash advisory centres in November 2025). QVA is based on certified engine susceptibility versus the current discernible ash criteria.
Efforts need to continue by MET Providers to provide space weather advisories to operators in accordance to Annex 3. METG/33 was informed of the European Aviation Crisis Coordination Cell (EACCC) Space Weather Exercise that will take place from 8 to 9 November 2023 as well as a preparatory workshop that will occur on 4 October 2023.
Guidance material such as the EUR SIGMET and AIRMET Guide (EUR Doc 014), the EUR OPMET Data Management Handbook (EUR Doc 018) and the Volcanic Ash Contingency Plan – European and North Atlantic Regions (EUR Doc 019, NAT Doc 006, Part II) were also updated to reflect regional best practices on the production of SIGMET and AIRMET when an exercise is conducted and when smoke impacts visibility and/or mountains obscured as well as reflect best practices on the exchange of OPMET data and the dissemination of volcanic ash information via the Regional OPMET Data Exchange (RODEX) schema.
Other topics discussed that would need to be addressed at the global level were challenges/risks related to the implementation of SWIM, providing IWXXM schema for all aeronautical meteorological information services, future services for significant meteorological conditions (hazards) for low-level area flights and enabling the inclusion of non-routine meteorological conditions in special air-reports.
METG/34 will be held from 17 to 20 September 2024 at the EUR/NAT Regional Office in Paris.
