Trial SIGMET Coordination among FIRs of Guangzhou, Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh, Hong Kong and Sanya

HKO News Bulletin for the Aviation Community (38th Issue)

To support seamless en-route hazardous weather information provision and in support of the WMO Pilot Project, the Observatory has developed a web-based platform for MWOs to prepare and coordinate SIGMET interactively and collaboratively, on a regional level. The Pilot Project involving the MWOs in Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore has since become operational ("HKO provides web application for SIGMET preparation and coordination", Dec 2016). To extend the SIGMET coordination effort, the Observatory coordinated another trial SIGMET coordination Project between 28 November 2017 to end March 2018, this time involving five neighboring Flight Information Regions (FIRs), namely Guangzhou, Sanya, Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh and Hong Kong. During the trial, aviation forecasters from the above five FIRs initiated dialogue about the cross-FIR weather phenomenon, trying to reach consensus on the extent, height, intensity, movement of the SIGMET messages to be issued by using the dedicated web platform developed by the HKO.

Figure 1: The five FIRs participating in the trial SIGMET Coordination Project