October 2026 EZNews

Thank you for taking a few minutes to read the 66th edition of EZNews!

We appreciate those members who have opted for automatic monthly renewal of their EZWxBrief membership. At this time there are no options to renew your membership annually. If you haven't set up your account to renew automatically, please sign in and follow the prompts if your membership has expired. Otherwise, go to the User Profile page (see right) and tap or click on the Renew button on that page. This allows you to set up your monthly renewal using a Visa, MasterCard, or Discover credit card (we do not accept American Express at this time), ensuring you continue to enjoy the simplicity of EZWxBrief.

Run EZWxBrief as a PWA

EZWxBrief is optimized to run as a progressive web app (PWA). So if you have not installed it on your device (you can install it on as many devices as you'd like), now's the time to do this to avoid weird rendering and other usability issues. See this post for more information on PWAs. You'll be happy you took the time to set this up.

New Inspector Tool

Many of the weather layers are presented as polygons or icons. To drill down further, pressing that polygon or icon will pop up a tabular display with those critical details. However, there are other layers that don't have that luxury. That's where Inspector mode can assist.

Although the raster layers such as turbulence, airframe icing, weather hotspots and radar have a legend, sometimes it's easier if you can just click or tap on the Map to expose the value at the point of interest. Inspector mode provide the ability to expose the specific value at that location.

To enable Inspector mode on the Map, look for the eyeball icon on the right side of the map that is positioned just above the Flight Mode button. This button will be grayed out with a slash through the center of the eyeball if there is not at least one layer exposed that can be inspected. Also, depending on the layer, the EZDeparture Advisor™  may need to be set to a departure time that is consistent with that layer before the Inspector mode is available.

Once pressed, a crosshair icon will appear in the center of the screen (see below). This target icon remains fixed in the center of the window. Then pan the Map to the desired location that you'd like to inspect. Below the target a small label will appear with a readout of the values at that location. For the case shown below, the icing severity and SLD are being rendered and have values of HEAVY and 70%, respectively.

To exit Inspector mode, simply press the Inspector mode icon again or navigate to another page (e.g., Imagery). Note the Inspector mode will change to a grayed-out eyeball icon with a slash through it when the Inspector mode is not available. This could be because no layers are rendered that offer this mode or the departure advisor is set to a time where the layers have no valid data (e.g., a few hours in the past with Airframe Icing or Turbulence selected).

New WeatherCams!

Backed by popular demand, in EZWxBrief you an now see hundreds of weathercams that are positioned throughout the conterminous United States and southern Canada. Simply select the WeatherCams option from the Map Layers menu (it's the last selection). The layer shows the location of each weathercam using a purple camera icon. You can show all weathercams available on the Map like you see below or you can filter the layer to only show icons for weathercams positioned within 10 statute miles of an airport. As shown below, most of the weathercams are located in the west and northwest U.S. and Canada as well as the Northeast U.S. As more weathercams become available, they will be added to this layer.

As you zoom in on the map, pie-wedge sectors will appear and display the direction each weathercam is facing. Each camera location typically provides between one and four distinct viewing angles or sectors.

Clicking any weathercam icon opens a viewer. Larger devices display all available camera views at once as shown below. You can also use the button in the bottom-right corner to compare current views against a clear day, or use the slider to scrub through historical images from the past few hours.

On smaller devices like smartphones, the viewer opens to a default sector. If multiple sectors are available, top navigation buttons allow you to switch between directional views (e.g., North, Northwest, South).

Lastly, if you visit the Airport Wx view for any airport that has a weathercam, there is a selection in the Airport Wx site menu to show the weathercams for that airport.

New Icing NOWcast Map layer

The Airframe Icing layer shown on the Map has a new attribute called the icing NOWCast. Only pilot weather reports can provide observational data. However, this new attribute works together with the icing forecast by determining the icing threat at the top of the most recent hour. It is updated hourly around 15 minutes past each hour. For example, if the NOWcast became available at 1215Z, it will be valid at 1200Z with the first icing forecast being valid at 1300Z.

This is a Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) based algorithm that assesses the state of the atmosphere for conditions related to in-flight icing over the conterminous U.S., southern Canada and adjacent coastal waters. The NOWcast combines sensor and near-term high-resolution model output to provide an hourly, three-dimensional diagnosis of the icing environment from the surface to FL300 (30,000 feet MSL). The observational data used by the NOWcast include MRMS composite reflectivity (NEXRAD), METARs, PIREPs, five satellite channels, and global lightning.

Similar to the icing forecast, the NOWcast has three parameters, namely, icing probability, icing severity, and the potential for supercooled large drops (SLD). Common values for icing probabilities may range from 0-100%. Icing severity is a derivative of the icing probability and the NWP generated precipitation conditions arriving at a categorical index encompassing five categories: none, trace, light, moderate, and heavy. Higher SLD values are indicative of increasing potential for the presence of SLD conditions using due to convection during the warm season and the threat of freezing precipitation during the cold season.

Similar to the icing forecast you can overlay the SLD NOWcast over the icing severity NOWCast as shown below.

It's now easier to enter airports into the route

You no longer have to remember the airport identifiers when planning a route in the EZWxBrief progressive web app. For many users this required an extra step to open one of the heavyweight apps to look up the correct identifier. Now, when planning a route, you can enter in the airport's name or the city in addition to entering the ICAO or FAA identifier. This will do a lookup in the database for any matches as you enter the characters into the departure, destination or stopover airport field.

For example, if you were flying to an airport in Charlotte, North Carolina and couldn't remember the exact identifier, you can now type in CHARLO and several suggestions will appear below the field. Then you can choose the airport you desire (e.g., KEQY) from the list. This feature works with the Departure, Destination and Stopover airports and not airports that may be entered in the route of flight field.

New Rapid Refresh Forecast System (RRFS) forecast radar layer

The most advanced preflight weather guidance found in the EZWxBrief progressive web app is the forecast radar layer. The previous forecast radar provided in the app was derived from the High Resolution Rapid Refresh (HRRR) model. Although it was updated hourly, the forecast radar limited to a 48 hour lead time. With the newest deterministic model from NOAA, namely, the Rapid Refresh Forecast System (RRFS), this forecast radar is also updated hourly, but extends out to 60 hours.

Like its predecessor, the Forecast Radar layer is still an attribute located under the Radar Map Layer selector. After selecting this Map layer, it will provide a 15-minute forecast time step through 18 hours and hourly to 60 hours. It is integrated with the MRMS Composite Radar layer that provides a six-hour archive of NOAA's ground-based weather radar network. This means that if the EZDeparture Advisor™ is set to a time that is less than six hours ago, the observed radar will be visible on the Map. Then as the departure time is advanced into the future, the forecast radar will be seamlessly shown as in the example below. This is a simulated reflectivity forecast with a unit of decibels of Z (dBZ) where Z is the reflectivity parameter.

New Echo Tops > 30,000 ft Map layer

The Echo Tops > 30,000 feet forecast can be found as a new attribute in the Radar layer. It shows the probability that thunderstorms or other significant radar echoes are forecast to extend above 30,000 feet MSL. The product is derived from the Rapid Refresh Forecast System Ensemble Forecast System (REFS), a convection-allowing ensemble that uses multiple model forecasts to represent uncertainty in the location and intensity of developing convection. Higher percentages indicate greater ensemble agreement that echo tops will exceed 30,000 feet at a given location; lower percentages indicate less agreement and therefore greater forecast uncertainty.

For pilots, this product, like the one shown below, can help identify areas where deep, potentially intense convection is expected, particularly when planning routes at or below the 30,000-foot level. It should be viewed as an area-of-concern forecast rather than an indication of the exact location or height of an individual thunderstorm. The 30,000-foot threshold is significant because very tall convective clouds generally indicate strong updrafts and deep convection. Use the forecast together with radar, satellite, Convective SIGMETs, and other current weather information when evaluating convective threats along a route.

New Flight Rules General setting

A Flight Rules setting was added as a new General setting to support the Altitude Advisor. This can be set to IFR or VFR such that when using the Altitude Advisor, it will only consider appropriate altitudes based on the direction of your route of flight. Note that when the Flight Rules setting is VFR, the highest selectable altitude will be 17,500 feet MSL. The lowest altitude will be 3,000 feet above the highest terrain along the route.

Moreover, when reversing the route of flight, the altitude will also be adjusted by 1,000 feet to reflect the hemispheric rule. This is true if the Flight Rules setting is IFR or VFR. Even so, you can always override the altitude. Nevertheless, if the setting is VFR, you will still not be able to set an altitude above 17,500 feet MSL.

Changes coming to the Convective SIGMET and its outlook

Beginning on or about December 1, 2026, at 1200Z, the Aviation Weather Center will implement the following changes to the Convective SIGMET advisory based on the Federal Aviation Administration and National Weather Service joint-agency working group recommendation.

1. Change the valid time from 2 hours to 1 hour.

2. Replace the outlook section with a reference to other NWS products that provide similar information.

From an EZWxBrief perspective, the convective outlook polygon is being discontinued as well. As a result, the outlook has be removed as an attribute on the SIGMETs layer.

New TAF service for Hilton Head Island Airport in South Carolina

Effective December 7, 2026 at 1200Z, the NWS office in Charleston, SC will begin TAF service for the Hilton Head Island Airport (KHXD).

New TAF service for Concord Padgett Regional Airport in North Carolina

Effective December 2, 2026 at 1200Z, the NWS office in Greenville-Spartanburg, SC will begin routine TAF service for the Concord Padgett Regional Airport (KJQF).

EZWxBrief v3 News

EZWxBrief v3.9.0, v3.8.1, v3.8.0, v3.7.1 and v3.7.0 were released in September. The release notes can be found here. If the app is open, sign out and close the app. Upon restart, you will have immediate access to the latest release.

Note that starting on December 1, 2026 the monthly subscription price for EZWxBrief will increase by $0.25 to offset the increasing cost of computing resources including, but not limited to, lightning data and the cost of artificial intelligence (AI) now used throughout the app.

Most pilots are weatherwise, but some are otherwise™

Your EZWxBrief product and sales team