… well, at least the sector controllers at Amsterdam can see it.
They mentioned cloud tops up to FL520 this evening on their facebook page.
Well thats comforting to know. I see the lowest return specifically marked is FL350 Do you know if their equipment picks up tops in the 20s?
The source of this information is probably the same as the Aviation Weather Center product in the US — precipitation radars that scan in elevation and give you the altitude of the highest precipitation echo. It should work in the 20’s. But it only works for convective clouds.
I think Sebastian said in some thread that the German weather service uses this information (the radar elevation scans) internally but doesn’t distribute it.
JMuel That link only covers the US how do you get Europe?
JMuel That link only covers the US how do you get Europe?
The AWC link was just to illustrate the principle. In Europe, I don’t know where one would go to get the data. Here and here are posts showing the DWD has the data at least for some of their radar installations, but I don’t know whether it’s available to the public.
The DWD does publish it but only on a paid for account. They also change the website periodically, presumably to block automated grabbing. I don’t know the delay on DWD but 5min radar is probably very pricey.
Some UK ATC do see radar but they don’t reveal it except when somebody is in serious trouble. I had one “situation” near Bournemouth EGHH some years ago and got vectors to avoid some CBs. But then ATC have loads of stuff they can’t reveal e.g. a laptop running FR24 
Especially when NATS want approx GBP 100k/year for a radar feed.
It would be daft to assume that no ATCO knows how to switch on a laptop and go to meteox.com for example.
5 min radar is what you get on a privat DWD subscription for about 80€ a year. German ATC has access to it of course and we have those feeds available at every working position, at least at Langen. Helps a lot during times like last night!
And of course we tell any pilot what he wants to know if we´ve got this information available. We certainly don´t consider weather information as classified!
The most simple way of getting real time information of course is to ask a crew. We regularly do this, sometimes even to get accurate wind information so that some balloon crew knows which altitude to go to!
The DWD does publish it but only on a paid for account. They also change the website periodically, presumably to block automated grabbing. I don’t know the delay on DWD but 5min radar is probably very pricey.
The DWD officially allow grabbing. The only thing they require is that each individual end user has a DWD subscription. The ADL works this way and requires its customers to have a DWD subscription (about 60 € a year for probably the best pilot weather service in Europe). Recently the DWD applied a new version of the platform (developed by a 3rd party) which has SSL and some links changes.
I operate a sat phone optimized weather site and have received permission from the DWD to use all their data provided I respect the conditions mentioned above.
I operate a sat phone optimized weather site and have received permission from the DWD to use all their data provided I respect the conditions mentioned above.
Achima I would like to know some details of this service.
I agree with Achim that the DWD aviation weather subscription is very good. Can’t find the radar echo tops product from any of the links on flugwetter.de, though.
(Of course, there is only one plane in Europe that I have access to, and realistically speaking that one isn’t going to make it over a cloud with a precip echo anyway…)
