Topic: Weather METAR's Explained

[Randall Kayfes]

Greetings, Captain Joe puts out some fantastic videos regarding piloting. This regarding METARS is entertainingly informative:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWB2TrxmSfg

Randall

[galfert]

Ya beat me to it.  I watched this when it came out (I'm a subscriber) and I was going to wait until he published part 2 to share both of them. Be on the lookout for part 2 hopefully soon. Captain Joe is fun and entertaining even to people like me that aren't pilots. Who doesn't love planes?

UPDATE:
Part 2
https://youtu.be/tllasHkEt10

Part 3
Part 3 on TAF coming soon.

I like using the NOAA Aviation Weather Center website because you can pull up the full METAR and have it decoded. Still even though it decodes it for you, it doesn't explain it. So Captain Joe's video was fun and informative.
https://aviationweather.gov/metar/

But for our weather stations we really don't need to know all this. All we (most) care about is the Altimeter and the SLP if it has it.

[Randall Kayfes]

I didn't mean to steal your thunder (pun intended). I fly FS-X only (Mooney Bravo) and Captain Joe has made it so much more fun (I think I have seen every one of his videos). Yes I can hardly wait for part two. So much of our weather reports are generated by airport sensors I though it would be nice/fun to offer up his video for all of us WX fans.

One of the more interesting aspects of the METAR's is the way in which they report cloud cover (by 8ths) which was news to me. 
Also the METAR link you gave was very nice as well thank you for that  .

[funsutton]

I find this site useful and quick at delivering the decoded METAR data soon after it's released. I used it a lot when I first put up my osprey to make sure it was in reasonable agreement.

https://aviationweather.gov/adds/metars/index?submit=1&station_ids=KGSO&chk_metars=on&hoursStr=2&std_trans=translated&chk_tafs=on

And now that I've watched Captain Joe I understand it better.

[galfert]

Part 2:
https://youtu.be/tllasHkEt10

Be on lookout for Part 3 on TAF.

[Storm017]

Here is the program I use for METAR data.

https://github.com/python-metar/python-metar

[miraculon]

In the local airport's VHF real-time report [WX AWOS-3: 118.125 MHz (989-734-7419)] reports "Density Altitude" in warmer weather under "Remarks".

However, this doesn't seem to appear in the METAR.

Is it common for Density Altitude to appear in METAR? I see a provision for it under RMK on some web sites, but it isn't appearing currently on the KPZQ METAR, but it is on VHF. (this is a small airport)

I found this to be a good explanation about Density Altitude: https://youtu.be/5yFIRHvoy4k and how it relates to aircraft performance.

[youtube]https://youtu.be/5yFIRHvoy4k[/youtube]

Greg H.