Volcanic Ash Coordination Tool (VACT)

VACT Example Volcanic Ash SIGMETS and ADVISORIES

VACT 2.1 Release, October 2004

Team members traveled to Alaska where they installed nine VACT systems. The Systems were installed at :

Volcanic Ash Advisory Center (VAAC) in the Alaska Aviation Weather Unit (AAWU)
Anchorage Center Weather Service Unit
Alaska Volcano Observatory
NWS Alaska Regional Headquarters.

Mt. Cleveland Eruption Satellite Animation

Mount Cleveland Eruption February 19, 2001. Satellite imagery enhanced to identify volcanic ash.

VACT software and system upgrades for this release include:

Interface for using AWIPS/FXC server data files as input for the PUFF Volcanic Ash Dispersion Model.
Displays of PUFF Volcanic Ash Dispersion Model output for GFS, UKMET, and MesoEta 216 models.
Integrated GUI PUFF launcher for easy manipulation of PUFF input parameters
High resolution polar orbiting satellite imagery at 1 km and 1.6 km resolution covering Alaska, the Aleutians, Kamchatka, and the Kuriles.
Enhanced satellite imagery for identifying volcanic ash.
The ability to move the mouse over volcano locations to extract volcano name, Smithsonian number, volcano elevation, location in latitude and longitude, last eruption date, and whether or not the volcano has seismic monitoring.


Sample PUFF AVN Global model run.				Integrated GUI PUFF launcher makes it easy to manipulate PUFF's input parameters

Discussions were initiated to plan a formal evaluation of the VACT capabilities, tentatively scheduled for late January. This evaluation will be conducted in the operational environments and will involve interagency (NOAA, FAA, USGS) collaboration in volcanic ash advisory preparation for realistic eruption scenarios.

Previous Releases

About the Project:

By enabling the Anchorage Volcanic Ash Advisory Center (VAAC), Alaska Volcano Observatory (AVO), and Anchorage Air Route Traffic Control Center (ARTCC) Center Weather Service Unit (CWSU) to view simultaneously identical displays of critical information (i.e. shared awareness) and collaborate in real-time, it is thought that a suite of fully consistent advisories and forecasts for volcanic ash can be generated. The Global Systems Divsion (GSD) will extend the current capabilities of the FX-Collaborate (FXC) and AWIPS systems to include volcanic ash data sets, dispersion models, and tools for generating volcanic ash products in order to meet the goal of creating a consistent set of advisories, which originate from different organizations. A rule based approach to establishing guidelines for collaboration will be developed and tested during this project.

VACT downloads