how to read metar observations
Welcome! I'm excited to help you master METAR reports. Before we dive into decoding these weather codes, I'd love to know what's motivating you to learn them.
I'm just curious about aviation weather
Aviation weather is a great rabbit hole to go down, and starting from scratch is actually the perfect way to build some solid habits! Let's get our bearings by defining what we are actually looking at.
METAR
noun
A highly standardized, coded surface weather observation report generated primarily for airports, typically updated on an hourly basis.
The word itself roughly translates from French as Météorologique Aviation Régulière (Aviation Routine Weather Report).
Because pilots and need to quickly assess safety conditions across multiple airports before taking off, METARs compress a massive amount of environmental data into a single, compact line of text. Instead of writing out a long paragraph about winds, clouds, and pressure, computers and observers use a strict, universal sequence of short codes.
The standardized sequence of a METAR report, showing KLAX, 121545Z, 24010KT, P6SM, FEW030, 22/18, and A2992.
I've loaded a visual overview of how this standardized sequence is laid out. No matter what airport you are looking at in the world, the structure of the data will always follow this exact order from left to right.
Would you like to continue and look at how a real METAR string is structured, or would you prefer a quick interactive quiz to see how these pieces line up first?