Holes You Should Know About in Official WX Products

Few pilots know that FAA imposes a hard character limit on text products such as Convective SIGMETs and the Area Forecasts (FA). The Aviation Weather Center (AWC) has a check program for the Area Forecast that counts the number of characters. On busy weather days when these forecasters have a lot to mention in the forecast, they often bust the character count. This forces them to cut from either the text or the synopsis in order to make the size fit through the National Airspace Data Interchange Network (NADIN) hubs. Often the first casualty is the ellipsis (...). Forecasters can use two periods instead of three. Another casualty is the synopsis. Of course, the last resort is to cut from the text of the FA.

Key Takeaways:

• The FAA imposes an outdated 3,000-character limit on aviation weather products like Convective SIGMETs and Area Forecasts for transmission through NADIN hubs, a restriction dating back to teletype days.
• These strict character limits often force forecasters to cut vital information, such as synopses or text, from weather products on busy days, and can lead to products being rejected.
• AIRMET Zulu, intended for widespread moderate icing, only covers approximately 80% of pilot-reported icing incidents, missing other significant conditions like convective or localized icing events.

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