Episode 157: AMS Road Weather and Technology - 2026 National Briefing

This National Briefing segment is presented by Dr. Brittany Welsh of the National Center For Atmospheric Research and Chair of the AMS Road Weather and Technology Committee. 

Check out their work products and get more information about the AMS Road Weather and Technology Committee at their website https://www.ametsoc.org/cwwce/committees/road-weather-and-technology/  

You can also reach out to Brittany Welsh at bmwelch@ucar.edu  

Watch the video and presentation along with all the other briefings on our YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/@Talkinwinterops or listen on the Talkin Winter Ops podcast at https://transportation.org/winter-weather-management/sicop-talks-winter-ops/ or wherever you get your podcast content.

Sign up for email notifications on future episodes and other communications associated with winter maintenance and winter weather management by clicking on subscribe on the Talkin' Winter Ops website at TalkinWinterOps.com

Thanks for listening in and stay safe out there!

Transcript

Rick 0:11

Welcome back to Talk in Winter Ops. It's that time of year again when we sit down with other organizations working in winter maintenance to catch up on what they've been doing this past year. I'm Rick Nelson, and I'll be your host for the 2026 National Winter Maintenance and Road Weather Briefing Series. These briefings give us an opportunity to catch up with our partners in winter maintenance and road weather, learn about what they've been working on over the past year, and hear about their plans for the future. More importantly, they give you a chance to see how these ideas, tools, and initiatives might fit into your own operation. So grab your favorite beverage, settle in, and let's catch up with our partners across the country to hear about what's new and what's coming up next.

SPEAKER_00 1:00

Hi, I'm Jen Falgren, State Maintenance Engineer for the Minnesota Department of Transportation. And for the last 14 years, I've been actively involved in the snow and ice community at the state DOT. And over the years, I've seen no shortage of new technologies, products, and ideas come along. The challenge often isn't finding information, it's figuring out what really works and what makes sense for your organization. As someone who's been involved with the program for these many years, I've come to appreciate the role the ASHO Winter Weather Management Technical Service Program plays in helping agencies answer those questions. One of the things that I've always valued most is that this just isn't theory, it's practitioners helping practitioners. It's a chance to learn from the experience of others. Avoid reinventing the wheel, and tap into a network of people who understand the same challenges that we face every winter. I've seen firsthand how these ideas and relationships built through this program have helped agencies improve safety, efficiency, and service to our traveling public. And with a modest annual contribution, your agency can take advantage of the same resources, webinars, workshops, and peer networks that have made this program so valuable to me over the years. If you're not already involved, I really encourage you to take a look at the Ashto Winter Weather Management Technical Service Program. Visit transportation.org forward slash winter-weather-management. You may find the answers to a challenge you're dealing with today. Or the next idea that really helps you move your winter operations forward.

Rick 2:54

This segment features the American Meteorological Society's Committee on Road Weather and Technology. And with us is Committee Chair, Dr. Brittany Welsh with the National Center for Atmospheric Research. Hi, Brittany.

SPEAKER_02 3:08

Hi, Rick. It's so nice to be here today. Thank you for having me.

Rick 3:12

It's good to see you again. So, so Brittany, what is it that you do there at NCAR?

SPEAKER_02 3:18

So, specifically, what I do is I try and bridge the gap between some of our bigger weather models and what we call micro scale models. So, what I'm really interested in is trying to get street-by-street scale weather and road weather information for autonomous vehicles, electric vehicles, so that they know the risks that they're encountering weather-wise when they're driving autonomously through cities. So that's my main um focus of research right now as a postdoctoral fellow here at NCAR in the Research Applications Laboratory.

Rick 3:54

Well, that sounds pretty cool. That's that's just the kind of stuff that we're interested in. So, Brittany, um you're the chair of the AMS Road Weather and Technology Committee. How about filling us in on what y'all have been doing this last year and what's coming up?

SPEAKER_02 4:09

Of course. We have so many exciting things. And I feel like the last time that um I was on here, we had a different name. And so we'll talk about our big name change that we went through just this past year. But the Road Weather and Technology Committee overall, as you can see by this really cool graphic here, is we cover a wide range of information and decision support tools of how weather impacts roads and how we communicate that with people. But to kind of start from a higher level, when we think about what is the American Meteorological Society or AMS, you have to think about the entire Earth system. So I have this cool little graphic here that shows one of the pictures that they took from the recent space launch and like sling around the moon and all the different parts of our Earth systems, clouds, the atmosphere, the oceans, the cities. What we're really focused on is kind of how all these parts of the system, especially the weather aspect, impacts kind of our roadways and how people interact with weather as they're driving. So, as a whole, for the American Meteorological Society or AMS, they have a mission of literally taking the idea of this Earth system and using that to advance the science and our understanding of Earth and the weather that Earth has and the various systems and how they interconnect. And they really want to do this to like help benefit society. So whether that's you know having several conferences that they do throughout the year as part of their activities, so that we can share science, share ideas, you can do peer-reviewed journals and publications as well, and you can also just kind of be an advocate or a spearhead for certain committees or organizations that go towards kind of benefiting society and connecting these different sectors, public, private, and things like that. Specifically, our committee within the umbrella of the American Meteorological Society, uh, the Road Weather and Technology Committee, which was formerly known as the Intelligent Transportation Systems and Surface Transportation Committee, uh essentially sits under a branch of the AMS umbrella called BED, or the Board of Enterprise and Economic Development. We went through a really big name change because we felt that we wanted our committee name to align with some of the other committees from different organizations. And I think it was the big thing out of it was we really wanted to make sure that the people that we were communicating with, partners, stakeholders, and things like that, had a better sense of what we are and our identity as a committee. And so that is how we went through the name change from the one previously to the Road, Weather and Technology Committee. So, what does our committee do? We really try and be this bridge between the weather and the roads, and we try and foster and facilitate connections between private sector, public sector, um, academia, and things like that, all with a goal of kind of breaking these silos and working together to try and reduce the fatalities that occur in all these different types of weather conditions that you see in the images on below that can affect roadways and cause crashes and fatalities, as well as financial loss. And so our committee is made up of several different people from the private sector, I think. At the moment, we have about 20 committee members, several student members, all from different agencies, and we are looking for more folks from the public sector, state DOTs, and academia so that we can have a really more well-rounded committee and get perspectives from all folks. So if anyone's interested in from those sectors, feel free to reach out to me. In terms of some activities that we've been up to, we've actually started kind of a new branch where instead of us giving talks and things at the American Meteorological Society conferences, we've actually started going to the Society of Automotive Engineer Conferences to talk about weather and roads. We noticed that there was not a well-rounded discussion on how weather impacts autonomous vehicles. And so instead of just talking about it within our own organization, we decided to take this discussion to the Automotive Engineers Conference and see what they had to say. So these images in this slide is about our first session that we had at SAE at the Automated Transportation Symposium in 2025, which occurred in Tempe, Arizona. And we had a super, super well-rounded set of panelists that you can see here in the image on the left, folks from A V deployers, from state DOTs, from data providers, anything that you can think of. We had everyone who should be at the table having this discussion. We had them there. And you can see me and Paul Pizzano were the organizers for this particular session. And there were some really, really interesting topics of discussion that came out of this. It was acknowledgement from the AV deployers that, yes, autonomous vehicles don't perform that well in adverse weather conditions, and what they want and need is high resolution street-by-street scale road weather information. And that is something that we're on the precipice of, but it's hard to have detailed observations of what that is like. That also led into conversation about how autonomous vehicles themselves can be mobile observation platforms or mobile weather stations. They collect so much data as they drive about cities that they themselves can be observation platforms. And we talked about this idea of mutual benefit between the A V deployers and the weather community, where they can provide weather observations from their vehicles that can help make better weather models. And then in turn, that can help to have help you have better weather forecasts and alerts that can help autonomous vehicles navigate bad weather, understand where and when it's going to happen. So this idea of mutual benefit was kind of the main frame from this particular session. We did acknowledge that there were some research needs that we needed to work towards, and that is we need a platform for like kind of consistent weather observation so the vehicles can grab that and understand when and where bad weather is going to happen. We need better ideas of protocols for when hazardous conditions are happening and the vehicle can no longer operate safely. What is the protocol for that vehicle? You can't just have all the vehicles pull over on the side of the road and wait it out. A lot of state agencies don't like the idea of that because it's not safe. So we really need to define these clear-cut boundaries of what's going to go on here. That leads us to our next session. We have another session at the Automated Transportation Symposium that is happening in just 10 days in San Diego, California, and it's called Weather and AV's Who Needs What. So this will be separated into two separate panels where we talk about A V deployer and test center perspectives in terms of the data. So this one's really focused on data needs and how feasible it is, how unrealistic it is, and then what are the different perspectives from the deployer side and from the data provider and state DOT side. The first panel really focuses on the idea of like, well, how do we test, further test AVs in bad weather versus just sending them out there into the world and when they run into it, then we learn our lesson. The idea of building up test centers and what data that we could learn from those test centers or simulations. And then the second panel really focuses on the data provider side of well, how do we, as the public and private sector, kind of build this bridge and this foundation for either integrating a standardized weather information format into an existing system, or does that need to be a whole new system that we need to integrate? And how do we make it consistent? Does it come from DOTs? Does it come from Federal Highways? Does it come from the National Weather Service? So these are all really good conversations that I hope to have with folks in the next 10 days for this particular panel for ATS this year. We have about eight panelists across about the same range as last year. We have some private sector, we have data providers, we have public sector. So I hope with like everyone in the room, you know, everyone who needs to be there in the room, we can have a really good conversation on moving forward to standardizing weather information for AVs, but also the idea of them being observation platforms themselves and trying to make this dream into more of a reality. Next, our committee has also organized four sessions this year at the American Meteorological Society conference that will be occurring in 2027 in Denver, Colorado. So just right up the street from where I am in Boulder, Colorado. So these sessions, AMS has this every year, where they have this gathering of scientists from off across all different sectors to talk about the various research that's been done over the course of every year. And so this is one, and the image on the right is one of our four sessions. We have this one every year, which is called Weather and Roads. And this particular session is mainly about kind of like any type of road weather research that is being done and any cool ways that you found to communicate road weather and things like that. So that is like the focus of this particular session, and we'll go through the rest of the three sessions that we have as well. This session, uh kind of on brand with what I was talking about before, is our automated vehicle session. And we really want folks who either have done research with automated vehicles and testing and various test beds, or folks who have worked on kind of user or operational needs for automated vehicles in adverse weather to really give us an idea of like what's going on, what's the forefront of the research, and you know, how we can move forward in kind of making this idea of like autonomous and electric vehicles being everywhere reality. And so that particular session is also something that we've organized for this year. Next, we have our renewed effort of the uh I think it's called the Clean Energy and Equitable Transportation Solutions session. And that's essentially if all vehicles were electric vehicles, what would that world look like? How would it impact the transportation and energy sector? So it's a joint session between uh one of the energy committees within AMS and transportation to see would all vehicles being electric vehicles be feasible with our existing energy grid? And what are some benefits and drawbacks to uh the idea of that? And then last but not least, uh we have our renewed Pathfinder session. Uh so the Pathfinder session is back. So anyone within like federal highways or anything like that who's kind of doing uh any sort of work in regards to that, you can uh uh submit an abstract to this particular session where we're really talking about that public-private partnership and having kind of driver or user-centric uh weather information and services for the public. Uh with that, that is all of our sessions that we have for this year, so many, and that concludes all of our activities. If you're interested in attending AMS in 2027, abstracts are due August 11th. So get those abstracts in if you have any interest in any of these sessions. And Rick, I think that's all I have for what we've been up to for the past year or so with the Road Weather and Technology Committee.

Rick 17:44

Well, you know, that's that's that's a pretty impressive, uh pretty impressive set of of accomplishments uh getting on those uh panels and and talking about this whole merging of weather and autonomous vehicles. Uh you know, that that's something that they've been struggling with for a really long time. And uh, you know, it's it's good to see progress is working. It's it's gonna come. And and Brittany, I've got a just a quick question. How do you see or do you see this whole artificial intelligence move that's happening impacting the work that you all are doing? Do you think it's gonna come into play or or do you think there's different lanes that are gonna be taken? Uh what do you what do you think?

SPEAKER_02 18:33

I definitely think it's gonna come into play. It's one of those, I feel like, runaway train things where you can't avoid it. Um I feel like we're already seeing it in some places where the surge of machine learning and AI has been so quick that now particularly we're pulling, taking a step back to understand the ethics behind the black box that is AI and machine learning. And that is why AMS this year um has been focusing on the more people-centric ethics around, you know, AI and how it's communicated and things like that. So I feel like you're spot on. Can't avoid it, it's already integrated into a lot of things, but I think it's time that we take that step back, take a wider view, and be like, how do we make sure that we're using this ethically and in a way that is communicated, uh, at least in the science, to make sure we're not miscommunicating things or we're understanding what's going on a bit more behind the black box, if you will.

Rick 19:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 19:42

Um, in terms of transportation, I think in the in the mind frame of autonomous vehicles, it is it'll be really pivotal in a sense of that these vehicles collect so much data and analyze so much data that it's necessary in order to kind of coalesce and uh and assimilate all the information into something that is usable within the weather community, if that makes sense. Um, so yeah, that's that's how to answer that particular question.

Rick 20:14

All right. Well, good good things are coming, and and um we'll post your uh contact information in the show notes. So if folks want to get in touch, they'll have an avenue to do that.

SPEAKER_02 20:26

All right. Thank you so much, Rick, for having me. Bye-bye, everyone.

Rick 20:33

Thanks for listening in on this year's national briefing. You can catch them all and other talk in winter ops episodes on our website, talkin'winterops.com, at the Ashto Winter Weather Management website at transportation.org forward slash winter-weather-management, or wherever you get your podcast content. Video versions of this briefing are available on our Talk and Winterops YouTube channel. Now, if something in this briefing sparked your interest, you can email me or our guests to keep the conversation going. Until next time, thanks for tuning in and stay safe out there.