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• New Richmond airport receives weather designation

By Shay Tilander, New Richmond News

The New Richmond Regional Airport received national acknowledgement August 1. when the National Weather Service agreed to start issuing Terminal Aerodrome Forecasts for the area.

A Terminal Aerodrome Forecast (TAF) is a detailed area forecast documenting surface winds, cloud height, visibility and present weather conditions at regional airports.

TAFs are always produced by human forecasters based on the ground, who take into account local, small-scale geographical effects, thus ensuring the most accurate and up-to-date information.

National Weather Service offices then combine this information, sent automatically, with measurements collected through their facilities to issue the TAFs.

These calculations are then used by pilots to determine if they will be able to make a safe landing at the airport, or if they will have to look for another suitable airfield.

The TAF forecasts are issued every six hours and cover the expected weather within five miles of New Richmond Regional Airport.

Typically TAFs are reserved for only large, carrier based airports such as; Milwaukee, Madison and the Twin Cities.

After some lobbying, NRRA received approval from the National Weather Service Office in Chanhassen, MN.

The airport received the nod in part because of the locally-based helicopter air ambulance operator Life Link III and the increasing business aircraft activity NRRA is receiving.

Get more on this story in this week's print edition of the New Richmond News.