Weather forecasting for aviation and marine operations in the Antarctic Peninsula region

An account is given of one Austral summer's experience of forecasting for flying activities and marine operations around the Antarctic Peninsula. Data available included surface and upper-air observations, analyses and forecasts from the UK Meteorological Office global, 19-level model and AVHRR satellite imagery. The numerical analyses and forecasts provided good guidance and correctly represented most of the synoptic-scale features. A number of mesoscale disturbances affected the central Peninsula area and the AVHRR imagery was very valuable in allowing the development and track of these systems to be followed. The major problems were the absence of observations to the west of the Peninsula, the lack of radiosonde ascents from the Peninsula itself and the complexity of local wind systems as a result of the topography. Forecasting frontal activity over the ocean areas was also very difficult because of the unavailability of precipitation forecasts in the GRIB data.