There’s no doubt that terminal aerodrome forecasts, simply known as TAFs, are perhaps the most detailed aviation forecasts available to a pilot. Within them lays a piece of forecasting critical to understand, and that’s for low-level wind shear.
If you call Flight Service for a standard briefing or get an automated briefing through one of the many heavy-weight apps, you can bet the farm that any TAFs along your proposed route and at your departure and destination airports will be a part of this briefing. There are, however, some finer details about the forecast found in TAFs that instructors fail to pass along to their primary students possibly owing to their own lack of knowledge. The top one on the list includes a forecast for nonconvective low-level wind shear (LLWS).
