What Is Metar In Aviation?

What does Metar mean in aviation?

A1. METAR is the international standard code format for hourly surface weather observations which is analogous to the SA coding currently used in the US. The acronym roughly translates from French as Aviation Routine Weather Report.

What is in a Metar?

A typical METAR contains data for the temperature, dew point, wind direction and speed, precipitation, cloud cover and heights, visibility, and barometric pressure. The complement to METARs, reporting forecast weather rather than current weather, are TAFs. METARs and TAFs are used in VOLMET broadcasts.

What is Metar and TAF?

METAR codes report observed weather conditions by airfield; TAF codes report forecasted weather conditions by airfield. Both codes are lines of text made up of data groups (or just “groups”) separated by spaces.

What is a TAF in aviation?

The Terminal Area Forecast ( TAF ) is the official FAA forecast of aviation activity for U.S. airports. It contains active airports in the National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems ( NPIAS ) including FAA-towered airports, Federal contract-towered airports, non-federal towered airports, and non-towered airports.

What does P mean in Metar?

P. indicates greater than the highest reportable value. PCPN. precipitation.

How long is Metar valid?

how long is a metar valid or updated? How long is a TAF valid or updated? METAR is used to tell the actual meteorological conditions on a station, airport or area indicating day/time wind, clouds, precipitations, altimeter pressure and temperature, it has a duration of 60 minutes and it is updated every hour.

What is the T at the end of a Metar?

The “0” after the ” T ” indicates that the temperature and dew point are higher than 0 degrees Celsius (a “1” will follow the ” T ” when the dew point temperature and /or the temperature is / are less than 0 degrees Celsius).

What does V mean in Metar?

V – Varying. VIRGA – Virga. VRB – Variable. VRB VIS – Variable Visibility. VV – Vertical Visibility, indefinite ceiling.

What does 9999 mean in a TAF?

9999. This value represents a visibility greater than 9000. meters (7 SM or more). The contraction CAVOK (ceiling and visibility OK) may be used when there is no significant weather, the visibility is 10 km or greater, and the ceilings are greater than 5,000 ft.

How do I read Metar visibility?

The first two digits are the date, the 16th of the month, and the last four digits are the time of the METAR, which is always given in coordinated universal time (UTC), otherwise known as Zulu time. A “Z” is appended to the end of the time to denote that the time is given in Zulu time (UTC) as opposed to local time.

Is TAF in Zulu time?

A “Z” follows the date and time grouping to remind pilots that like other aviation times, the time listed in the TAF is in UTC, or “ Zulu ” time, not local time.

What is Cor in Metar?

What does the word ” COR ” in a METAR message indicate? Presence of ” COR ” in a METAR means that a corrected METAR or SPECI is being transmitted. ” COR ” report invalidates a previous message and replaces it with a ” COR ” message.

Is Metar AGL or MSL?

Height is important, especially in the mountains. Remember, METAR and TAF report the height of clouds AGL, not MSL.

How far is a TAF good for?

TAFs are valid for a 30 hour time period and are issued 4 times a day at 6 hour intervals. The forecast includes forecasted wind speed, wind direction, visibility, ceiling, type of precipitation (i.e. snow, rain, etc.) and/or weather phenomenon.