No METAR Data at AOPA and NWS?

[Scott Lowrey]

After a few months off from flying, I went to some of my favorite
aviation weather sites only to find that I couldn't get any METARs.
Both AOPA and ADDS are returning "invalid identifiers" for well known
airports like IAD and MSP. I've tried other airports with and without
the leading K - no luck.

DUATS seems to work fine through AOPA's Real Time Flight Planner.

Anybody know what's up?

-Scott

[Richard Russell]

On 2 Mar 2004 12:14:25 -0800, (Scott Lowrey)
wrote:

>After a few months off from flying, I went to some of my favorite
>aviation weather sites only to find that I couldn't get any METARs.
>Both AOPA and ADDS are returning "invalid identifiers" for well known
>airports like IAD and MSP. I've tried other airports with and without
>the leading K - no luck.
>
>DUATS seems to work fine through AOPA's Real Time Flight Planner.
>
>Anybody know what's up?
>
>-Scott

Just checked KIAD on AOPA and it worked fine.
Rich Russell

[Scott Lowrey]

Richard Russell wrote:

> Just checked KIAD on AOPA and it worked fine.
> Rich Russell

Thanks. A combination of two things screwed me up.

First and foremost, I was searching for a METAR that doesn't exist.
There is no weather reporting station at Gaithersburg-KGAI, according to
AirNav:

WX AWOS-3 at CGS (16 nm SE): 121.225 (301-864-5497)
WX AWOS-3 at FDK (18 nm NW): 124.875 (301-694-1457)
WX AWOS-3 at JYO (19 nm W): 125.225 (703-777-3781)
WX ASOS at IAD (19 nm SW): PHONE 703-661-2990
WX ASOS at DCA (20 nm S): PHONE 703-412-8140

Secondly, I was using three letter identifiers to search for *other*
airports when I couldn't find GAI. I thought AOPA took either one but I
see now that they need the full ICAO code.

In my limited experience in Minnesota, I can't recall encountering an
airport identifier that could not be used to retrieve a METAR.

And isn't it a little weird that the nearest reporting station is 16
nautical miles away? This is not a small field. Granted, it does sit
in the shadow of Dulles, Reagan, BWI, and the giant ADIZ...

-Scott

[G.R. Patterson III]

Scott Lowrey wrote:
>
> And isn't it a little weird that the nearest reporting station is 16
> nautical miles away?

Doesn't seem weird to me. If there's a reporting station only 16 miles away,
why pay the cost of setting another one up there?

George Patterson
A diplomat is a person who can tell you to go to hell in such a way that
you look forward to the trip.

[Malcolm Teas]

Scott Lowrey > wrote in message news:
> First and foremost, I was searching for a METAR that doesn't exist.
> There is no weather reporting station at Gaithersburg-KGAI, according to>
>...
>
> And isn't it a little weird that the nearest reporting station is 16
> nautical miles away? This is not a small field. Granted, it does sit
> in the shadow of Dulles, Reagan, BWI, and the giant ADIZ...

A guy working at the FSS in Leesburg told me one day that the state of
VA had paid to make their weather reporting stations accessible to
FSS, and I presume to us as well. However, MD had not done so. I'm
less concerned with GAI since it's pretty much in between MRB, IAD,
and BWI, etc. You can interpolate. However, CBE is well west, and in
the mountains. There's no FSS available reporting there and that
would really be nice to have. It'd also be nice to have that there to
tell us flatlanders what's coming our way.

Also, NWS seems to be having some problem with AWOS/ASOS reporting on
their web pages today too.

-Malcolm Teas