Metar/WX abbreviations

[Mike Boehler]

Will Metar, or any WX code and abbreviations come back to me without a cheat sheet?

I'm getting frustrated with my inability to remember the codes with my re-introduction to the cockpit.

I test myself on a regular basis, (God knows I can't fly lately) and I regularly can't remember pieces of the METAR.

I almost to a point of finding a cheat sheet online.

I'd rather have some type of laminated card than not being able to decipher when I need to.

 

[fgcason]

WX reports are just another language like any other. If you were proficient at it before, you just need exposure to the language to get proficient at it again.

 

[elmetal]

Will Metar, or any WX code and abbreviations come back to me without a cheat sheet?

I'm getting frustrated with my inability to remember the codes with my re-introduction to the cockpit.

I test myself on a regular basis, (God knows I can't fly lately) and I regularly can't remember pieces of the METAR.

I almost to a point of finding a cheat sheet online.

I'd rather have some type of laminated card than not being able to decipher when I need to.

Just ready metars from locations other than your homebase and you will soon wonder why people need a cheat sheet, it'll just come to you!

BR is the one that I cannot remember without thinking Baby Rain or British Rain (btw BR is mist)

other than that I think that's it. it really helps just reading at least a metar a day even if you're not flying. and if where you live it's always the same crap: (041255 120010 P6SM SKC ) then look at larger airports in the vincinity they usually have more info, and also look out for cool stuff in bad weather areas around the country (like for example Midwest/Northeast right now) and while you learn your metars, you sort of chuckle at the misfortune of those snowed in.

Well don't do the last part but you catch my drift

 

[Mike Boehler]

Thanks;

I'll keep pugging away, I'm trying numerous METARS a day and today I got hung up on "SLP" of all things. Something that's on ALL METARS.....Good Grief, Some rust is harder to knock off than other rust...Simple mental blocks sometimes and sometimes its from not putting the stuff down and moving on to something else.

 

[Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe]

Thanks;

I'll keep pugging away, I'm trying numerous METARS a day and today I got hung up on "SLP" of all things. Something that's on ALL METARS.....Good Grief, Some rust is harder to knock off than other rust...Simple mental blocks sometimes and sometimes its from not putting the stuff down and moving on to something else.

SLP doesn't show up that much on the ones I look at

But if you want a good crib sheet - see attached.

I don't remember this stuff from 30 years ago - but back then there wasn't all this ASOS / AWOS everywhere you turned. Or the internet to look them up on. You called FSS and looked out the window and that was about it...

 

[Mike Boehler]

SLP doesn't show up that much on the ones I look at

Hey, Thanks for the download.

As for the "SLP", hm, I guess that's another discussion, why it would be on all the ones I've seen so far but not all of them. Granted my sampling size is very small to date..

 

[fgcason]

BR is the one that I cannot remember without thinking Baby Rain or British Rain (btw BR is mist)

I guess I've been hiking way too long however:
Cold mist in the mountains wearing summer weight clothes = brrr = BR

 

[elmetal]

I guess I've been hiking way too long however:
Cold mist in the mountains wearing summer weight clothes = brrr = BR

hahaha that's another funny way of looking at it.

Why the heck did they pick BR and not MS or MT or something?

 

[Fearless Tower]

Will Metar, or any WX code and abbreviations come back to me without a cheat sheet?

I'm getting frustrated with my inability to remember the codes with my re-introduction to the cockpit.

I test myself on a regular basis, (God knows I can't fly lately) and I regularly can't remember pieces of the METAR.

I almost to a point of finding a cheat sheet online.

I'd rather have some type of laminated card than not being able to decipher when I need to.

Are you trying to re-learn them in prep for a checkride, or just to remember them?

Unless it is for checkride prep, I don't know that it is really worth losing sleep over trying to memorize the codes - modern DUATS weather briefs are all plain english and the Aviation Weather Center even translates the METARS and TAFS for you. One of the things that helped me when I was originally learning for my PPL was to print out both the real world plain language reports and the coded reports from the AWC site and compare.

So, unless you are getting ready for a checkride soon, I'd just practice comparing the two when you get your weather reports and it will come back to you.

With the exception of checkrides, I have never found a situation in the last decade where I actually needed to know the codes.

 

[fgcason]

Why the heck did they pick BR and not MS or MT or something?

I think mist in French is brume thus BR. (I'll know for certain in a bit)
Other than that, no clue at the moment.

 

[Mike Boehler]

Are you trying to re-learn them in prep for a checkride, or just to remember them?

Unless it is for checkride prep, I don't know that it is really worth losing sleep over trying to memorize the codes - modern DUATS weather briefs are all plain english and the Aviation Weather Center even translates the METARS and TAFS for you. One of the things that helped me when I was originally learning for my PPL was to print out both the real world plain language reports and the coded reports from the AWC site and compare.

So, unless you are getting ready for a checkride soon, I'd just practice comparing the two when you get your weather reports and it will come back to you.

With the exception of checkrides, I have never found a situation in the last decade where I actually needed to know the codes.

No Checkrides in my near future, that's for sure.. A BFR yes, but that's not really why I'm hung up on it. I'm just that way I am guess. I drive myself nuts with things sometimes. My time alloted to re-learning aviation, could be better spent elsewhere.

 

[Fearless Tower]

I think mist in French is brume thus BR. (I'll know for certain in a bit)
Other than that, no clue at the moment.

That is correct, I never understood why, but alot of the weather codes are based on French.....and that is government issued weather in general, not just avaition.

 

[Jim Logajan]

Learn French. :wink2:

FU: Fumee (smoke)
GR: Grele (hail)
BR: Brume (mist)

Or:

BR: Baby rain (mist)
GR: Granite rain (hail)

I haven't seen a good mnemonic for FU.

 

[elmetal]

Learn French. :wink2:

FU: Fumee (smoke)
GR: Grele (hail)
BR: Brume (mist)

Or:

BR: Baby rain (mist)
GR: Granite rain (hail)

I haven't seen a good mnemonic for FU.

Fired up?

 

[fgcason]

That is correct, I never understood why, but alot of the weather codes are based on French.....and that is government issued weather in general, not just avaition.

Empennage, aileron, coque(as in monocoque), canard and quite a few other common words are french origin. It's consistent. People often make fun of France however the French had their nose stuck into a lot of things over the centuries. Also Academie Francaise worked to develop and preserved the French language which meant there was a well established language standard since the first half of the 1600's. English is more or less the standard nowadays. French was the standard previously. Greek was before that. (Right now I could so easily go off on a research project on such stuff - it's a long story due to a couple very interesting cultural history classes I've taken recently)

I haven't seen a good mnemonic for FU.

Indirect word association?
Smoke = something is on fire = something effed up and made the stuff?

My time alloted to re-learning aviation, could be better spent elsewhere.

But you were giving the impression in the first post that this is part of the reintroduction into airplanes and you needed to relearn what you forgot. Or is relearning parts of aviation in order to fly again, including things like WX that can kill you to smithereens, an unimportant waste of time? Can't learn it unless you put the effort into it and WX is some seriously important stuff.

 

[Mike Boehler]

You might want to check out my latest two minute aviation weather video tip...it may not answer all of your questions, but does provide some discussion about SLP in a METAR.

Listened to it yesterday Scott; Thanks for that. Always very interesting.

But you were giving the impression in the first post that this is part of the reintroduction into airplanes and you needed to relearn what you forgot. Or is relearning parts of aviation in order to fly again, including things like WX that can kill you to smithereens, an unimportant waste of time? Can't learn it unless you put the effort into it.

I don't recall saying that learning METAR codes was a waste of time, someone offered up a cheat sheet and I'll use to try and re-familiarize myself with the codes.

That was quite a leap you made. I am re-learning them. But there are many facets of aviation that I need to re-learn to my own standards and with the focus I've put on memorizing METAR codes, I could very well spend that time learning other aspects of the WX world and look up the codes and still be further ahead.

"Unimportant waste of time" are probably words that I have never spoken, nor will speak with regards to my flying. But only I have to be comfortable with that.

Plenty of buzzing around your airspace going on by folks who don't know the codes, and quite probably some that don't know what a METAR is. I have no plans on being one of them.

I suppose you could say that I'm not "putting the effort into it" because I haven't nailed them yet and willing to look them up, but spending 3 snowy days searching codes and METARS from around the country and trying to decipher and posting for advice on a message board where I am woefully unknown, hardly qualifies in my book, but probably not yours, but that's ok.

Thanks for everyones help. BR= baby rain: I will remember that one. I never think of those things.

 

[elmetal]

Thanks for everyones help. BR= baby rain: I will remember that one. I never think of those things.

You know, even nowadays I look at metars and tafs and I still call it baby rain even though my mind knows it means mist. It's gonna be hard to get rid of this when I get my CFI and have to teach people BR = Mist.

I see BR and I just yell out BABY RAIN!