Hey guys! Jon from Fly8ma.com and today we're going to get into
part two of METAR's and TAFs. This is the more nitty gritty meaty part of METAR's
and TAFs. We're going to focus along the remark section and all those strange
abbreviations you don't get to see too often. The ones that really get you on
those check rides, especially for commercial and CFI check rides that
you just don't get to see a whole heck of a lot until the weather is really bad
and you really do need to know what they mean. So we're going to jump right into
it.
All right so here's our METAR for Punta Gorda and it follows that same
standard format that they all do and now we're going to go ahead and focus on the
remarks section. Starts off with a A02 What does that mean? Well that ultimately
means that the automated station can distinguish between rain, snow and, etc if
it's at A01 it would mean that it cannot distinguish between rain or snow
and so on so A01 is just a little bit more sensitive station, more sensors, and it'll
let you know the difference between rain or snow, or sleet. Things like that. Moving along
here PRESFR pressure falling rapidly. If it was PRERR instead that would
mean pressure rising rapidly. So just a rapid change in pressure in this case.
Warning you about rapidly deteriorating weather or front passing through SLP.
That's fairly easy. That's a sea-level pressure is 1095 millibars.
So we add a 1 in front of that so that's going to be your your millibars for when
you're flying. I guess the europeans use that. We really don't use that in the
States. We just use that - 9 or 0.8 1 the inches of mercury instead of millibars
mercury. P0003, what that means is how much precipitation has
fallen in hundreds of inches over the past hour, so not a whole heck of a lot
of precipitation recently and then T02110194 that
ultimately means temperature is 21.1 degrees Celsius 19.4
degrees Celsius for the dew point. So that just is more specific. Now let's
go ahead and talk about sky conditions, remembering back from our private pilot
training. SKC means sky clear but that would only be for a manual observation
somebody would have to manually input SKC.
If we saw CLR that would be from an automated station and it means clear
below one two thousand twelve thousand feet could be overcast thirteen thousand
but below there it's totally clear. Few clouds would be
zero to two eighths or basically 1/8 or two eighths of the sky covered scattered
3/8 or four eighths of the skycap it covered broken five to seven eight so
5/8 6/8 seven eighths and overcast would be eight eighths of the sky. If you saw
VV instead of one of these types of sky conditions that means vertical
visibility. So indefinite ceiling but basically just the ceilings obscured or
your visibility is obscured, how high you're going to be able to see up into
the sky. Vertical visibility might just be a hundred or two hundred feet almost
like as if the clouds are at the surface very low visibility and there's no
defined ceiling but you do lose ground contact after 50 or 100 or 200 feet so
on. So cloud types that they might also include in their CB willl be
cumulonimbus presence whenever we see CB we watch out TCU you would be even worse
that's towering cumulus present. So cumulonimbus means rain cumulus clouds.
Towering cumulus are about to be bad thunderstorms if they're towering
they're tall, they're strong, and it may not be raining yet so TCU is something
also to definitely watch out for. Next thing to note is this says METAR, it's
a standard report issued once an hour. If we saw speci SPECI that would stand for
it was a special report issued either because of a huge change in weather they
wanted to update or for some other reason it was specially issued not in
the standard time. Now let's go ahead and talk about runway visual range and
you'll get into this as especially as you start flying instruments or it's
your commercial and CFI level. Runway visual range is exactly what it sounds
like, how far down the runway can you see. It's going to be displayed in the METAR
right after the visibility so right after half a mile visibility or
right after three miles of visibility three SM it would say "R32L /1000FT"
That stands for runway 32 L or three two left has 1,000 feet of visual range. If
it said "R06L2000V4000FT" that stands for runway six left has
2,000 feet bearing to 4,000 feet visual range down the runway. If it said M0600FT
that would be it's less than 600 feet so very little visibility P6000FT
feet greater than 6,000 feet they don't determine anything beyond that. Then you
just rely on your in-flight visibility or your t2SM your 3SM statute miles
whatever it might be. Now let's go ahead and talk about the
description about the weather phenomenon and this is probably a good place to
pause and take some notes basically - minus means light if there's no symbol it
would be moderate and a plus would be heavy. VC stands for in the vicinity. If
there doesn't say VC then you assume it's right at the station. MI=shallow.
PR= partial. BC=patches. DR= low drifting. BL=blowing showers. FZ=freezing and TS=
thunderstorm. So now let's go ahead and talk about the types of weather
phenomenon. Precip types would be DZ drizzle ra rain SN snow SG snow grains
IC ice crystals PL ice pellets GR for hail that's greater than 1/4 inch in
diameter and GS for small hail or just larger snow pellets but small hail less
than 1/4 inch in diameter. Now for what type of obscuration we have to the
visibility we have BR for mist, FG fog, FU smoke, VA volcanic ash, DU dust, SA sand,
HZ haze, PY spray and UP for unknown precipitation type. Now for some bonus
points here other types of designations you might see that are a little less
common PO equals well developed dust or sand whirls, SQ for squalls,
FC for funnel cloud, tornadoes, water spouts watch out. SS sandstorm. NDS dust
storm. Now lastly we're going to go over some
marks that we don't see quite so often in our METARs but can show up from time
to time. So WSHFT is a wind shift and WSHFT45 would be a wind shift at 45
minutes past the hour. FROPA would be a frontal passage. PK WND 34050/38
that means peak wind 3 4 0 degrees at 50 knots and occurred at 38 minutes past
the hour. Then this whole long thing here RAB05E30 and then snow and so on
means rain began 5 minutes past the hour ended 30 minutes past the hour snow
began 20 minutes past the hour and ended at 55 minutes past the hour so it's just
to begin and remark kind of a longer one there. This one right below it rain and
snow began at 20 minutes past the hour and ended 55 minutes past the hour so
rain and snow began both the 20 minutes past the hour and ended together. PWINO
is present weather identifier not available. Basically
weather sensors inoperative. FZRANO are freezing rain we can assume that
so freezing rain info not available is what that means the freezing rain
sensors and up TSB05E30 is thunderstorm began 5 minutes past the
hour ended 30 mins past the hour begin and remark again TSNO that's a
pretty common one thunderstorm info not available the lightning detection
systems inoperative on the a wall sir ASOS or whatever they have the field
occasional OCNL just means occasionally so you might see occasional lightning
and that would be less than one flash a minute FRQ would be frequent 1 to 6
flashes a minute C0NS continuous greater than 6 flashes a minute so lots
of lightning CG cloud to ground lightning IC in cloud lightning CC cloud
to cloud CA cloud to air CBW MOV E cumulonimbus clouds
West moving to the east CBMAM DSNT S
that's cumulonimbus clouds mammatus distant to the south that's just a type
of cumulonimbus cloud. TCU OHD towering cumulus overhead that'd be bad
that's when you can expect some microburst or down drafts when those
thunderstorms are directly overhead .TCU W towering cumulus to the west. ACC
West altocumulus Castle lanius to the west in casa tell Aeneas is just
another type of accumulo squad almost done here stick with us AC SL s SW
that's altocumulus standing lenticular clouds south through Southwest ccsl over
mountain to the east that's cirrocumulus standing lenticular clouds over the
mountains to the east in case you're curious verga is simple that's just a
burger at the station that's basically rain that doesn't touch the ground that
evaporates before hits the ground you can google that if you want more
information verga distant to the Northeast just means virgos distant to
the Northeast Tower biz one tower visibility is one
mile SFC vist two and a half that's surface
visibility two and a half miles VIS 2 RY 11 runway one one that's visibility two
miles at runway 11 or 1 1 vis 1 V 2 visibility is varying between 1 and 2
statute miles vis n 2 that's visibility to the north is 2 mile sector visibility
so maybe it's good four or five mile visibility of the field but off to the
north it is 2 mile visibility. And that is it for the METAR remarks
abbreviation section. You stuck with us. Hopefully took good notes. Thanks so much
for sticking with us here. If you have any questions at all, you should have
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