United States Department of Transportation
i
Visibility Variability at Seattle, WA and Portland, OR : Insights into the Impacts of Runway Visual Range (RVR) Measurements on Aviation Operations.
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2001-01-14
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[PDF-116.96 KB]
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Abstract:The FAA's new generation Runway Visual Range (RVR)
system was first placed into service in 1994 at several
key airports in the United States. During the last three
years, the Volpe National Transportation Systems Center
has monitored RVR data on behalf of the FAA from a
number of airports as part of a program to assess the
performance of these systems. This paper utilizes data
collected on RVR at airports in Seattle, WA and Portland,
OR in order to establish the variability of Category I, II
and III conditions at these sites as a function of time of
year and time of day. The findings provide important
insights into both the similarities and differences in RVR
that occur at these two airports. The most severe RVR
conditions tend to occur during the same periods of the
year, starting in late summer and ending around mid-
January of the next year. The variability in RVR values
are shown to depend on the time of day; the most
prevalent times for Cat II and III events begin in the
late evening and extend on through to around 11:00 am
LST of the next day. The greatest amount of time in Cat
II and III conditions occurs from around 5:00 am to
10:00 am. There is also an important tendency for these
RVR events to occur in sequences that last for several
consecutive days. Although Seattle and Portland are
both in the Pacific Northwest and experience similar
weather conditions, the periods when Cat II and III
conditions occur at these sites do not generally coincide.
This is attributed to the location of Pacific storm tracks
relative to the location of the airports. The insights
obtained from this and similar analyses of RVR data
should prove valuable for airline planning and lead to
more effective control of traffic at these airports and
throughout the National Airspace System (NAS).
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