WEATHER RADAR SHORT-TERM FORECAST FOR IN-FLIGHT COCKPIT DISPLAYS

Improvements to airborne weather radar systems onboard an aircraft that apply forecasting modeling techniques to output a forecast of future 3-dimensional (3D) radar reflectivity returns, forecasted composite radar image data, forecasted changes to potentially hazardous weather cells, including forecasts of future expected hail size and forecast which regions of airspace may be associated with future convective storms. The range of the forecast may be limited to approximately the range of the weather radar, which may be a few hundred nautical miles. Depending on the type and speed of the aircraft, the forecast duration may be approximately thirty minutes or less, e.g., the amount of time to reach the limits of the radar range.