Air Traffic Control Fully Certified
Air Traffic Control Time Certified In Pos 1 (yrs) 8
Workload; Communication Breakdown; Situational Awareness
ATC Issue All Types; Deviation - Track / Heading All Types; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Clearance; Inflight Event / Encounter Weather / Turbulence
Air Traffic Control Provided Assistance; Air Traffic Control Issued New Clearance
Weather; ATC Equipment / Nav Facility / Buildings; Company Policy
A line of extreme precipitation was sitting just outside the northwestern boundary of the sector extending from the adjacent Center airspace southwest to northeast into Atlanta's airspace. Aircraft at all altitudes were deviating around this line when I first sat down to work the sector. At first; I was getting point outs from both adjacent sectors for aircraft that were flying along my northern and northwestern boundaries. However; as the line of precipitation grew and solidified; the aircraft that were being pointed out to me by adjacent sectors were now deviating further into my airspace for longer periods of time. I stopped accepting point outs and asked sectors to hand the aircraft off instead. There were multiple aircraft that were handed off to me that had incorrect altitudes for their direction of flight without prior coordination and approval. There were several situations of deviating aircraft within my airspace that caused situations of converging traffic at the same altitude. Flights in my airspace at 32;000 ft. and 34;000 ft. were also experiencing continuous chop to turbulence and were causing additional workload by requesting climbs to 36;000 ft. and above. Because of the bad rides at 32;000 ft. and 34;000 ft.; this increased the complexity of separating the converging traffic at 36;000 ft.; etc. All of this was occurring while the TMA (Traffic Monitor Alert) showed the sector in the 'green' with a low traffic count below 10; even though I was working 16 plus aircraft. The complexity of the sector started to intensify as I was being relieved for a break due to aircraft calling for different altitudes as well as other Center controllers calling on the line for coordination. The sector should have been at least flagged as yellow in TMA and reflect a more accurate projection of the increasing volume aircraft which continued to be routed into my airspace for the weather deviations. There is a known issue with TMA for two sectors which keeps it from accurately depicting projected traffic volume. Because of this; spikes in traffic volume at these sectors goes unnoticed by TMU (Traffic Management Unit) and management and no corrective actions are taken in a timely matter to ensure the controller is not overwhelmed. Often the sector volume and complexity builds quickly and creates an unsafe situation where the controller is over tasked before management takes notice.The TMA and ERAM (En Route Automation Modernization) systems need to be corrected so that the TMA works as intended. This Center is currently trying to use a mitigation by having the west area supervisor run a FEA (Flow Evaluation Area) to look at traffic volume for the sector; however; it is not effective. FEA information is only displayed on a desktop at the supervisor desk and is not displayed in the Status Information Area where the sector team can see it. CICs and FLMs (Front Line Managers) have not received any training on how to use the system that creates FEAs; nor is there any written procedure on the use of the FEAs. The FEA does not show the agreed upon sector volume thresholds indicating when the sector is 'Red.' A 'Red' sector is described in the SOP that requires TMU to notify the area Front Line Manager or Controller in Charge of the traffic volume projection.
Center Controller reported weather deviations caused their sector to become overloaded; and Traffic Management software was not working correctly.