Winter Weather Notams: MU

Well, keeping with the winter weather theme, I  thought it would be apt to talk about winter notams.   I was checking weather this afternoon for a flight and came across the following NOTAMS:

CLE 12/090 CLE 6L ERD MU 22/26/29 WEF 0712051030
CLE 12/092 CLE 10 ERD MU 39/32/39 WEF 0712051040
CLE 12/115 CLE 24L ERD MU 37/41/38 WEF 0712051421
CLE 12/120 CLE 6L/24R PTCHY THN SN DEICED SOLID WEF 0712051515
CLE 12/122 CLE 24L BOW MU 39/41/38 WEF 0712051515

First of all, what is MU? Prononced “Mew”, MU is a measurement of runway friction as reported by airport managament.  You can tell by looking at the number how slippery and how good your braking will be.

The ERD tells me what type of equipment was used to generate this number:

So ERD would be a Electronic Recording Deceleromter

What you are looking for is a MU value above 40.  The lower the MU, the lower the braking effectiveness.  You can supplement this information with the NOTAMs concerning runway conditions:

CLE 12/120 CLE 6L/24R PTCHY THN SN DEICED SOLID WEF 0712051515

This will give you a full picture of what the runway conditions are and how it will affect your landing performance.