Mother Nature battles Father Time during JEFX

  • Published
  • By 1st Lt. Corinna M. Jones
  • Joint Expeditionary Force Experiment 2004 Public Affairs
NELLIS AIR FORCE BASE, Nev. (AFPN) --  Mother Nature is a force to be reckoned with, and warfighters know weather can be more dangerous than the enemy itself.

This is the logic behind the Joint Expeditionary Force Experiment 2004 machine-to-machine weather innovation initiative that provides automatic weather information to the Combined Air and Space Operations Center.

At JEFX, the initiative provides instantaneous information from the Joint Weather Impact System Web-service database. The system relays information through satellite imagery including observations, modeled weather- and forecaster-generated information, and automatically and instantly displays the weather to both the computer-generated maps used for mission and target planning. It also provides information to the common operational picture -- the large command and control screens found in the CAOC.

Through the initiative, both applications being demonstrated during JEFX 04 provide instant weather information to the people planning and executing the war.

In the past, wartime mission planning was done with maps and grease pencils. Now, grease pencils are rarely used; however, weather professionals still rely heavily on manual methods of updating forecasts and personally contacting mission planners when the weather changes. During JEFX, most manual methods are being removed as the weather initiative sends information directly to the computer-based master air-attack plan toolkit, automatically assessing the weather of the departure base, target area and recovery base.

The weather assessment can be read either in a table format or on a computerized map. Each assessed area comes up color coded: green, meaning no impact; yellow, marginal impact; or red, significant impact. The program explains why an area comes up moderate or significant to give planners other options.

“Rather than canceling a mission, we can know to change the weapon system, aircraft, launch or recovery base,” said Harry Druckenmiller, master air-attack plan weather forecaster. “It saves operators a lot of time and keeps them from needlessly rescheduling or retasking a mission when perhaps only an element of the mission needs to change.”

Mr. Druckenmiller said not being able to consider weather ahead of time was a major lesson learned in Operation Iraqi Freedom.

“This is going to benefit the warfighter tremendously because they can plan missions around the weather ahead of time so that weather impacts will be minimal,” he said. “By not taking weather into account ahead of time, we risk the chance of scrapping a mission that otherwise could have been planned around the weather and been successful.”

As for providing weather information to command and control operators, weather personnel currently provide warfighters with information through briefings. The time it takes to manually update maps and personally brief warfighters could come at a high price to the people fighting the war on the ground and in the air. However, the weather initiative automatically updates weather information which is integrated into the screens viewed by commanders and operators in the center.

“Just like they know where the intel threats are, they know where the weather threats are too,” said Capt. Dean Carter, JEFX chief of weather support. “This is not a tool for weather people; it’s to show weather to operators.”

Captain Carter said weather professionals currently update slide briefings manually which are viewed as a separate picture on the CAOC screens. Commanders observe the map separately from the weather report to put the pieces together.

“I worked the CAOC during OIF and we were PowerPoint jockies. We read the weather, typed it into the PowerPoint slide, put it on a floppy disk and loaded it into the coalition network that broadcasted on the wall,” Captain Carter said. “In JEFX, the weather is being communicated directly to the coalition network. Now I have more time to do other parts of my mission such as time-sensitive targets. It’s a tremendous time saver.”

The experience gained through this experiment will be immediately applied to the process of establishing further machine-to-machine weather linkage at all levels of warfare. The payoff will be speed-of-light weather situational awareness for mission planning and execution, said officials.

“It’s through technology that we are able to improve warfighter situational awareness and exploit the weather for battle,” said Lt. Col. Lucy Lee, initiative sponsor representative. “What used to be done by grease pencils and other manual methods are now instantly color coded. Time is the critical factor.”

Although only two machine-to-machine applications are being tested during JEFX 04, the template has value to all center systems requiring weather information and will impact the mission.