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I’m taking the instrument check ride next month and I’m going to be blogging nightly on different topic in preparation for all of the stuff I think will come up on the oral part. I am preparing for lots of aviation weather talk, so at least the next week will be over those topics. I will have to explain things like the difference between a stable and an unstable atmosphere, what standard temperature and pressure values are, and the two basic ways that fog may form. 

One very basic thing I will have to do is hop on aviationweather.gov and read and interpret a METAR. The first thing I will do is going to aviationweather.gov and click on METAR – it’s in the upper left hand corner of the website. Then I will scroll down to near the bottom of the page – on the right, where it says “Request Metar Data”, and I’ll type in the identifier of my airport – in this case KCRQ. 

The METAR reads: Data at: 0358 UTC 23 Mar 2016 KCRQ 230353Z AUTO VRB03KT 10SM CLR 15/10 A3004 RMK AO2 SLP169 T01500100

 Here’s how I’d read this: Airport is KCRQ, Carlsbad, CA Time – 23nd of March at 03:58 Zulu Time. I convert the time and it’s the 22nd of march at 20:58 Pacific Daylight time. The AUTO, when it appears just after the time group, means that the observation is from an automated station. Winds are light and variable at 3 knots, visibility is 10 or more statute miles, sky is clear, Temperature is 15 degrees, Dew Point is 10 degrees. Remarks: A02 means the station has a precipitation discriminator. SLP stands for Sea Level Pressure, which is another measure of atmospheric pressure. The Last digits that start with a “T” are the he hourly air and dewpoint temperatures to the nearest 1/10 C degree.

Tomorrow night I think I will review the Winds and Temperature aloft chart, and what valuable information can be determined on there, like the most favorable altitude, areas of possible icing, temperature inversions, and turbulence.