Saturday, March 4, 2006 - 20:33:07 ET

METAR Weather Codes ... Decoded

I've been spending the past hour working on my Computer Systems assignment (its a METAR, TAF, and FD decoder). I'm at the point now where I have to convert the weather codes into human readable format. Ie, make it so that "SN" is displayed as "Snow".

Most of the codes are straight forward:

SN = Snow
RA = Rain
VA = Volcanic Ash
DZ = Drizzle

There are some that, at first, didn't make any sense:

GR = Hail
BR = Mist
FU = Smoke
PO = Dust

I thought to my self.. Hail, in French is: grêle. So I looked up the French equivalent of "mist" and "smoke", and low and behold:

GR = Hail = Grêle
BR = Mist = Brume
FU = Smoke = Fumée
PO = Dust = poussière

Now, the only ones I cant figure out are:

MI = Shallow
BC = Patches
GS = Snow Pellets

If anyone knows what "real" word those codes are abbreviations of, please let me know. Knowing the "real" word actually helps me remember what the codes mean!

Comments (2) | Permalink | Category: Training

GS = Granular Snow? That's the way I've always interpreted it.

Posted by: Mark on Saturday, March 4, 2006 - 22:29:45

MI I've always thought of as being mince, French for thin.

Posted by: Aviatrix on Monday, June 5, 2006 - 21:10:59