Definition
A weather display feature that shows the predicted track of an individual thunderstorm cell as a line or arrow on the cockpit weather screen, indicating the direction the cell is moving and, in many systems, where it is forecast to be at a future time.
Plain English
A line or arrow on the weather display that shows which way a thunderstorm is heading and where it will be in a few minutes.
Context Anchor
Seen on an MFD or other electronic flight display when viewing onboard or datalink weather information.
Derivation
Graphical comes from a Greek word meaning “drawn” or “written.” In weather use, cell means one distinct area of storm activity, not a battery or a prison room. Together, the phrase points to a drawn display of where a storm area is moving.
Why Pilots Care
Lets a pilot judge whether a storm will cross the planned route and decide whether to divert early.
Grounding Statement
If a storm cell is near your route and its movement arrow points across your course, you can picture the storm crossing the area you planned to fly through.
Intuition Check
Do not assume “graphical” means perfectly current or exact. Here it means the storm’s movement is shown visually on the display, often from reported data that may be several minutes old.
Example Sentence 1
The graphical storm cell movement on the MFD showed the cell tracking northeast at 30 knots, so the pilot deviated south to stay well clear.
Example Sentence 2
Checking graphical storm cell movement helped the pilot turn south before the cells reached the destination airport.