Application of Analogue and Hybrid Methods in Forecasting of Horizontal Visibility

Abstract

Forecasting visibility is one of the greatest challenges in aviation meteorology. At the same time high accuracy visibility forecasts can significantly reduce or make avoidable weather related risk in aviation as well. In order to improve forecasting visibility, this research links fuzzy logic based analogue forecasting and post-processed numerical weather prediction model outputs by their linear combination in hybrid forecast, which gradually shifts the focus from statistical to numerical products taking their advantages during the nine-hour-long forecast period. Complete verification of categorical forecasts was carried out. The average value of Heidke Skill Score (HSS) of examined airports of analogue and hybrid forecasts show very similar results even at the end of forecast period where the rate of analogue prediction in the final hybrid output is 0.1–0.2 only. However, in case of poor visibility (1000–2500 m) hybrid (0.65) and analogue forecast (0.64) has similar average of HSS in the first 6 hours of forecast period, and has better performance than persistence (0.60) or TAF (0.56).