The Prog Charts that pilots have been using for the last decade or two (pictured below) will be undergoing a facelift sometime in September 2015.
So at ForeFlight we’re giving you the opportunity to test drive the new charts before they become operational and are officially released by the National Weather Service (NWS). We’ve added these forecasts to our USA Ensemble Imagery and you can find them under the NDFD Progs collection as shown below.
So What’s Changing?
The current Prog Charts are issued by highly experienced meteorologists at the Weather Prediction Center (WPC) in College Park, Maryland; that won’t change. The new implementation will still use the fronts and sea level pressure (SLP) forecast issued by those same meteorologists at the WPC, however, the precipitation forecast represented by those pale green lines is being replaced. The new instantaneous precipitation forecast is now being extracted from the National Digital Forecast Database (NDFD). Instead of the green contours, you’ll see the new precipitation forecast as shaded and outlined regions like the ones shown below.
The new NDFD Prog Charts contain a mosaic of digital precipitation forecasts issued from all of the local NWS weather forecast offices (WFOs) throughout the United States working in collaboration with the National Center for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) and WPC. The forecasts depicted combine the familiar WPC forecasts of fronts, isobars and high and low pressure centers with the NDFD depiction of expected weather type and likelihood.
The precipitation presented on the new NDFD Progs is forecast coverage just like its legacy counterpart. So it is valid at the time posted on the chart and not over a period of time. Using a color-coding, the legend in the lower left corner of the image describes the precipitation type or weather expected (rain, snow, mixed, ice and thunderstorm) as well as the likelihood (chance versus likely) that the precipitation will occur.
We know that it’ll take some time to become completely comfortable with the new forecast depiction of precipitation, but give them a try now so you’ll be way ahead of other pilots come September.