A dispatcher reported major weather disruptions in the new york and washington dc areas caused his f...

Narrative:

Weather was scattered convection from ind east affecting arrivals into ny/dc metropolitan. The dispatcher I was relieving was said they've never experienced a desk like this; with the sheer number of reroutes affecting their flights and the number of aircraft in the air at one time needing attention. I have worked these desks in the past; but coming into a situation like today; is no easy task. I took the desk over; immediately had airborne reroutes; off gate reroutes; holding; requests to change alternate; ride report and cell top requests. Almost every flight destined for ny metropolitans had 1; if not 2 airborne reroutes. During all this; my first release was due shortly with several more to follow. There is no time to release flights when there is weather or the absurd number of ATC advisories published. We are currently on ATC advisory #193 for today. That's 193 separate ATC advisories that require your attention to see if they apply to your flights. I had 16 flights in the air when I took the desk over. I diverted within 90 minutes and reported to the mdo I would not be able to release my flights. They removed 3 flights from my desk and I was still struggling to properly flight follow and release.

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: A Dispatcher reported major weather disruptions in the New York and Washington DC areas caused his flights arriving into those areas to overload him making it impossible to release some of his flight.

Narrative: Weather was scattered convection from IND east affecting arrivals into NY/DC metropolitan. The dispatcher I was relieving was said they've never experienced a desk like this; with the sheer number of reroutes affecting their flights and the number of aircraft in the air at one time needing attention. I have worked these desks in the past; but coming into a situation like today; is no easy task. I took the desk over; immediately had airborne reroutes; off gate reroutes; holding; requests to change alternate; ride report and cell top requests. Almost every flight destined for NY metropolitans had 1; if not 2 airborne reroutes. During all this; my first release was due shortly with several more to follow. There is no time to release flights when there is weather or the absurd number of ATC advisories published. We are currently on ATC advisory #193 for today. That's 193 separate ATC advisories that require your attention to see if they apply to your flights. I had 16 flights in the air when I took the desk over. I diverted within 90 minutes and reported to the MDO I would not be able to release my flights. They removed 3 flights from my desk and I was still struggling to properly flight follow and release.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.

Attributes
ACN	1263383
Time
Date	201505
Aircraft 1
Make Model Name	Commercial Fixed Wing
Operating Under FAR Part	Part 121
Flight Plan	IFR
Person 1
Function	Dispatcher
Qualification	Dispatch Dispatcher
Events
Anomaly	ATC Issue All Types Deviation - Procedural Published Material / Policy Inflight Event / Encounter Weather / Turbulence

A dispatcher reported major weather disruptions in the new york and washington dc areas caused his flights arriving into those areas to overload him making it impossible to release some of his flight.