Every time you prepare for a flight, you’re probably reviewing some METAR reports. But just how much do you know about these bulletins? Where do they come from? Hopefully we’ll fill in some of the gaps in your knowledge and in the process help make your flights a little bit safer.
METAR is short for Meteorological Aerodrome Report. It’s an international code form developed in the post-WWII years by the World Meteorological Organization. The United States, always preferring to do its own thing, used its own code form, called “airways code” or SAO code. You’ll occasionally see this in old training material. That airways code format is now a relic of the past, having been abandoned in 1996 when the United States switched over to METAR and TAF code.
