KMYF 031742Z 14003KT 1 1/2SM -RA BR BKN008 OVC012 18/17 A3001 RMK AO2 RAB36 CIG 004V011 P0000 T01780167. Wait, don’t email us yet! I know what you must be thinking, massive typo in today’s blog post. But don’t fret, our editors are not on vacation, this is just an Aviation Routine Weather Report, affectionately known to pilots as a METAR. In Monday’s blog post we covered METARS; if you have not yet done so I would suggest going back and reading that here.
A METAR is one of the most common ways for a pilot to obtain weather information. It’s short, quick to read and provides a wealth of weather data. The report is not necessarily going to provide you with an in-depth analysis of what’s happening in that geographical region but it will provide you with weather information within the general vicinity of the reporting station. However the first task is learning how to decipher and interpret all the numbers and letters, so today let’s spend a little bit of time practicing. Let’s refer to the standard METAR above and work through it breaking down each section into the valuable information it’s providing.
KMYF = Location of the report noted by the station identifier; KMYF is Montgomery Field in San Diego, CA.
031742Z = Date and time of the report; in this case the 3rd of the month at 1742 Zulu.
14003KT = Wind and velocity in relation to true north; wind is coming from 140 degrees at 3 knots.
1 1/2SM = Visibility; 1 ½ statute miles.
-RA BR = Present weather conditions; RA indicates rain with a negative symbol this means light rain. BR is mist (or I like to think of it as baby rain). So the station is currently reporting light rain with mist.
BKN008 OVC012 =Sky condition; broken at 800 ft AGL overcast at 1,200 ft AGL.
18/17 = Temperature (18) and dew point (17) given in Celsius.
A3001 = Altimeter; 30.01.
RMK AO2 RAB36 CIG 004V011 P0000 T01780167 = Remarks section:
AO2 signifies this report comes from an automated station with a precipitation discriminator (this simply means the station is able to identify the type of precipitation, in the case of this METAR rain and mist).
RAB36, the RA stands for rain and the B stands for beginning. This remark is stating that rain began at 36 minutes past the hour.
CIG 004V011, Ceiling is variable between 400 feet and 1,100 feet.
P0000, inches of precipitation in the last hour zero.
T01780167, these numbers are just breaking down the temperature and dew point to a tenth of a degree; 17.8 Celsius temperature and 16.7 Celsius dew point. The two zeros are identifying the following temperatures as positive; if those zeros were one’s it would be identifying negative numbers. 0 means positive 1 means negative.
Now try a few on your own, see if you can answer each of the questions below as it relates to that particular METAR. If you need some additional help you can refer to Aviation Weather Services (FAA AC 00-45G) publication. Good luck, answers will be posted on Monday.
METAR KRDG 031854Z 17003KT 10SM BR OVC007 06/04 A2999 RMK AO2 RAB07E33 CIG 006V010 SLP163 P0000 T00610039
- What is the date and time of this report?
- What is the sky condition and ceiling?
- When did the rain stop?
METAR KMYL 031927Z AUTO 00000KT 1 1/4SM -SN BR SCT006 OVC020 M01/M02 A2990 RMK AO2 SNB04 P0001 T10111022
- What is the visibility at the time of the report?
- What current weather phenomenon is occurring?
- How much precipitation has fallen in the last hour?
