Weather stations run by federal agencies

Government observing stations are the best weather stations. Why? Because they are funded to keep and use modern reliable non destructive test equipment. Devices such as temperature recorders, humidity data loggers, wind speed instruments and machines for cloud information records.

Find Weather Stuff.

In the US, NOAA weather stations and similar national forecasting services in other countries provide flight weather data. Knowledge upon which human lives can depend. They keep extensive records and empirical data past weather data, climate data real time weather data, and air quality data.

Sometimes data makes it into the Guinness Book of World Records. Other times it is used to calibrate aircraft instruments. Government observers and technicians are highly trained and well paid.

What do official observations look like?

This is quite technical.

METAR is an acronym for hourly METeorological Aviation Report. It is a single line of encoded weather info provided by the weather stations.

If it's a special non-routine report, they call it SPECI, used for sudden changes in the weather. For a forecast , the official phrase is Terminal Aerodrome Forcast or TAF for short.

METARs are weather observations encoded in a special language. The format has become the world standard for weather stations, as set by ICAO, the International Civil Aviation Organization. For the most recent observations somewhere in the USA, find your nearest airport four letter code example KLAX for Los Angeles Airport.

If you need your airport (weather station) code, use this webpage, type the city name and hit submit. Find the 4-letter code after the initials ICAO. Big cities and two-word cities names will give a list of several weather stations and you'll need to find the right one. Then go to the government page here and type that code in.

Canadians have a good one . It gives the last three METARs, forecasts, and allows you to type in the city name if you don't know the airport code.

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Data History Weather

So how do you read these things???

Here's an example:

KJFK 242151Z 15009KT 10SM CLR 09/01 A3006 RMK AO2 SLP180 T00940006

Ok, here's the breakdown:

KJFK - Airport Code for John F. Kennedy Airport in New York City. This needs to be one of the most reliable weather stations due to sheer air traffic volume.

242151Z - 24th day of the month March 2003 here, but that is not included in the METAR, 21:51 coordinated universal time 4:51 pm New York time-EST.

15009KT - Wind blowing from 150� southeast at 09 knots about 10 mph. If there is a capital G in this part of the code followed by a number, that means there are gusts, bursts of stronger wind, the speed of which is given in knots. The speed and direction can be determined by airport wind socks or anemometers with vanes.

10SM - Visibility in miles. There could be fractions if visibility is poor. 10 miles here is pretty good. If it is bad, visibility can also be recorded in feet for each runway.

CLR - No cloud sky. Rain would be RA, light snow=-SN, Heavy showers=+SH, Fog=FG.

There are dozens of other codes used here, but these are the main ones. If there are clouds, the coverage BKN for broken, OVC for overcast, FEW, SCT for scattered, VV indicating the furthest upwards the observer can see and height multiply the number by 100 to get feet, example BKN040 means broken clouds 4000 feet high. If several layers of cloud can be seen, they will report them all.

09/01 - Temperature and Dew Point in degrees centigrade Celsius. Capital M for minus means below freezing values. To get Fahrenheit temperatures: add 40, divide by 5, multiply by 9, subtract 40.

A3006 - Altimeter setting, for pilots. Set it for 30.06 inches of mercury.

RMK AO2 - RMK means remarks, they may talk about recent weather, cloud types such as CB for cloud cumulonimbus, or other elements. The weather stations have this feature, other stations are automated and cannot elaborate.

Wind shear a real problem for pilots is also recorded if present. AO2 is some kind of special code added by NOAA weather stations.

SLP180 - Pressure! Adjusted for Sea Level! If the number is greater than 500 divide by 10 and add 900 if it is less than 500, divide by 10 and add 1000 to get millibars. Then get kiloPascals by dividing by 10, or inches of mercury by dividing by 33.8653. You'll need a calculator for that one.

T00940006 - Can be ignored, not used by all weather stations.

This is the kind of flight weather data the official weather stations provide.

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