Any Unknown or Unlisted Aircraft Manufacturer
Air Traffic Control Fully Certified
Workload; Confusion
ATC Issue All Types
General None Reported / Taken
Human Factors; Procedure; Weather
Shortly after arriving for work an aircraft inbound to CLT from the southeast in ZJX Sector 71 encountered severe turbulence near Florence; SC. There was what was becoming a solid line of extreme precipitation from just southwest of Atlanta; GA to east of Wilmington; NC well out into the Atlantic Ocean. Despite this weather; the HUSTN Arrival southeast of CLT was not closed until after the aircraft encountered the severe turbulence. Approximately an hour after this event; an Air Carrier aircraft departed Fayetteville; NC and was cleared directly into the worst of the weather at Florence; SC until the R71 Controller informed the ZDC W26 Sector that the aircraft could not get into CLT through that weather. Should the Air Carrier not be aware of the significant weather impacting the area? At ZJX R52; I had several Air Carrier aircraft inbound to CLT still routed into the worst of the weather asking for shortcuts still into the worst areas of weather. Should they not be aware of the weather? I had to request routing's from the CIC to provide to these aircraft to CLT. The routing's were changed several times in the 15 minutes that they were in my sector. Traffic to the northeast through ZJX Sector 52 was routed up M201 and being handed off to New York Center. Eventually New York Center refused to take anymore of these aircraft northeast bound due to weather deviations and a frequency outage; however they continued to hand off traffic down M201 southbound throughout the rest of the evening. How were they able to work southbound traffic only? When they refused to take the northeast traffic; I was left with a number of aircraft that I could not find a routing through the areas of moderate to extreme precipitation that they were comfortable with; although they eventually found an area to deviate through in lieu of turning west to Atlanta; GA to go around the west side. Some aircraft were able to get non-RADAR routing's into ZNY that must have caused congestion on some of the non-RADAR routing's because an aircraft en route to Europe left my frequency for ZNY concerned that FL330 (the highest altitude we could get approved for him) was too low and they might have fuel issues if they could not get a higher altitude. An Air Carrier aircraft that had departed TPA and instead of going northwest around Atlanta; GA to get around the weather; ended up at ZJX R52 and was deviating east for weather while ZNY was still not taking northeast bound traffic up M201. This aircraft also ended up accepting a routing into the line of precipitation that they were not comfortable with. How could this happen to another aircraft 6 or 7 hours after this weather had initially been a factor? There be a plan for aircraft to get around areas of weather that includes the users of the system. This plan should be developed ahead of the event when the severe weather is forecast to be a factor.
ZJX Controller described a confused routing situation during multiple weather deviation procedures; the reporter indicated planning was absent with regard to weather re-routes.