Why do have to read weather like this?

[[email protected]]

KHSV 221553Z 19009KT 6SM BR FEW020 BKN035 OVC100 19/18 A2986 RMK
AO2 TSE00RAE11 SLP104 TS MOV NE P0000 T01890178=

I know, and I can read it. And someone is going to say that they
prefer it that way.

I can just see an ASR-33 Teletype machine jumping up and down and
saying that 10 characters per second is what God made for us.

Kind of like the farmers here who said that we were messing with God's
time when we went to daylight savings time.

Rant still on,

Mike Weller

[Nathan Young]

On Fri, 22 Apr 2005 12:37:54 -0500, wrote:

>KHSV 221553Z 19009KT 6SM BR FEW020 BKN035 OVC100 19/18 A2986 RMK
> AO2 TSE00RAE11 SLP104 TS MOV NE P0000 T01890178=
>
>I know, and I can read it. And someone is going to say that they
>prefer it that way.

I prefer it this way. Once you are used to it, it is shorthand, and
is quicker to read than the longhand version, which would read
something like this...

Huntsville International Airport, April 22, 1553Z weather. Winds
190@09kts, 6 statute miles visibility in mist. Few clouds at 2000
feet, broken cloulds at 3500 feet, overcast clouds at 10,000 feet.
Temperature 19 deg C, dewpoint 18 deg C, Altimeter 29.86...

[Michael 182]

We don't. There are at least a dozen translator tools out there, including
DUATS and ADDS.

Michael

> wrote in message
news:1114190529.b66f5cddb1aec1ba47dfaf0f4432d36e@o nlynews...
> KHSV 221553Z 19009KT 6SM BR FEW020 BKN035 OVC100 19/18 A2986 RMK
> AO2 TSE00RAE11 SLP104 TS MOV NE P0000 T01890178=
>
> I know, and I can read it. And someone is going to say that they
> prefer it that way.
>
> I can just see an ASR-33 Teletype machine jumping up and down and
> saying that 10 characters per second is what God made for us.
>
> Kind of like the farmers here who said that we were messing with God's
> time when we went to daylight savings time.
>
> Rant still on,
>
> Mike Weller
>
>

[Peter Clark]

On Fri, 22 Apr 2005 12:37:54 -0500, wrote:

>KHSV 221553Z 19009KT 6SM BR FEW020 BKN035 OVC100 19/18 A2986 RMK
> AO2 TSE00RAE11 SLP104 TS MOV NE P0000 T01890178=
>
>I know, and I can read it. And someone is going to say that they
>prefer it that way.
>
>I can just see an ASR-33 Teletype machine jumping up and down and
>saying that 10 characters per second is what God made for us.

How about FDL uplinks? I think they're only around 30K/s. I'd rather
see that used uploading the Nexrad info rather than English form
METAR.

The translation of the raw data is trivial to do in the client end of
the system (a-la the Bendix KDR510/810, or the XM weather in the
G1000, it shows both decoded and raw-data TAF and raw-data METAR if
available for the reporting stations).

So technically, we don't have to read weather like that, there's just
not (or is there? hmm) a simple program where one can type in a
station and out pops the translated text (something more simple and
fast than aviationweather.gov or DUAT, just a quick and dirty
application - enter station(s) here, out comes realtext there..
Should be trivial to write for those who know how to do such things).

[Nathan Young]

On Fri, 22 Apr 2005 14:35:52 -0400, Peter Clark
> wrote:

>On Fri, 22 Apr 2005 12:37:54 -0500, wrote:
>
>>KHSV 221553Z 19009KT 6SM BR FEW020 BKN035 OVC100 19/18 A2986 RMK
>> AO2 TSE00RAE11 SLP104 TS MOV NE P0000 T01890178=
>>
>>I know, and I can read it. And someone is going to say that they
>>prefer it that way.
>>
>>I can just see an ASR-33 Teletype machine jumping up and down and
>>saying that 10 characters per second is what God made for us.
>
>How about FDL uplinks? I think they're only around 30K/s. I'd rather
>see that used uploading the Nexrad info rather than English form
>METAR.
>
>The translation of the raw data is trivial to do in the client end of
>the system (a-la the Bendix KDR510/810, or the XM weather in the
>G1000, it shows both decoded and raw-data TAF and raw-data METAR if
>available for the reporting stations).

It is not as trivial as it should be. METAR decoder software is
difficult to write because of the special weather statements that can
be included in a METAR entry (things like RVR, multiple precip types,
etc).

Simple parsers can grab winds, date, time, and cloud conditions. But
to be all-encompassing requires a bit more. I found a package (via
NOAA?) that would do METAR decodes, and it included approximately 30KB
of source code, which seemed like a lot for the extra bit of
functionality it provided.

[Peter Clark]

On Fri, 22 Apr 2005 19:55:22 GMT, Nathan Young
> wrote:

>It is not as trivial as it should be. METAR decoder software is
>difficult to write because of the special weather statements that can
>be included in a METAR entry (things like RVR, multiple precip types,
>etc).
>
>Simple parsers can grab winds, date, time, and cloud conditions. But
>to be all-encompassing requires a bit more. I found a package (via
>NOAA?) that would do METAR decodes, and it included approximately 30KB
>of source code, which seemed like a lot for the extra bit of
>functionality it provided.

30K just for the parser, or did that include station name lookup
tables? Seems like the code should just do one pass through a
relatively straightforward nest of if/thens/elseif. Load the METAR
into an array since each element is space-delineated, the first two
elements are going to be the station name and time of issue (assuming
no SPECI). Then the rest of the code would be if/then for the
multiple elements. So, 19015G32KT 1SM -RA BR BKN010 BKN035 OVC050
would be IF (windtype) THEN (printwind) ELSIF (visibility) THEN
(printvis) ELSEIF (preciptype) THEN (printprecip) ELSIF (cloudtype)
THEN (printcloudtype) ELSIF (temp) THEN (printtemp) (blah blah blah) -
rinse/recycle/repeat the analysis for all non-null elements in the
array..

I think the problem with most of the decoders I've seen is that they
expect METAR elements in fixed positions and only code for the base
case and don't do any processing. Old weather injectors for MS Flight
Sim are good examples of this. Get an RVR in there and they'd have
cloud base numbers for the temp and all sorts of nasty errors.

[Icebound]

"Peter Clark" > wrote in message
...
> On Fri, 22 Apr 2005 19:55:22 GMT, Nathan Young
> > wrote:
>
>>It is not as trivial as it should be. METAR decoder software is
>>difficult to write because of the special weather statements that can
>>be included in a METAR entry (things like RVR, multiple precip types,
>>etc).
>>
>>Simple parsers can grab winds, date, time, and cloud conditions. But
>>to be all-encompassing requires a bit more. I found a package (via
>>NOAA?) that would do METAR decodes, and it included approximately 30KB
>>of source code, which seemed like a lot for the extra bit of
>>functionality it provided.
>
> 30K just for the parser, or did that include station name lookup
> tables?


Like most computer code, 20 percent of it probably does the real work....
and the 80 percent is there to make sure that it exits elegantly and does
not run into an infinite loop, crash-to-operating-system, or report
ridiculous value... whenever it is fed garbage input or exceptional
conditions.

[Bob Chilcoat]

Hey, don't malign the ASR-33. It was the only input and output device on
the Nova II I had in grad school. Paper tape input will make a man of you.
Of course I hated it, but don't be unkind. :-)

--
Bob (Chief Pilot, White Knuckle Airways)


> wrote in message
news:1114190529.b66f5cddb1aec1ba47dfaf0f4432d36e@o nlynews...
> KHSV 221553Z 19009KT 6SM BR FEW020 BKN035 OVC100 19/18 A2986 RMK
> AO2 TSE00RAE11 SLP104 TS MOV NE P0000 T01890178=
>
> I know, and I can read it. And someone is going to say that they
> prefer it that way.
>
> I can just see an ASR-33 Teletype machine jumping up and down and
> saying that 10 characters per second is what God made for us.
>
> Kind of like the farmers here who said that we were messing with God's
> time when we went to daylight savings time.
>
> Rant still on,
>
> Mike Weller
>
>

[Icebound]

"Bob Chilcoat" > wrote in message
...
> Hey, don't malign the ASR-33. It was the only input and output device on
> the Nova II I had in grad school. Paper tape input will make a man of
> you.
> Of course I hated it, but don't be unkind. :-)
>

ASR33? That's 8-level ASCII!!!

REAL men used 5-level baudot paper tapes with the shift-up-shift-down
characters for numbers-letters. Your aviation weather report (SA,
fore-runner of today's METAR) had to be decoded from something like this:

QWEXQTXUXEYQOXOOW

whenever the local machine failed to execute the appropriate
shift-up-to-numbers.

[Matt Barrow]

"Bob Chilcoat" > wrote in message
...
> Hey, don't malign the ASR-33. It was the only input and output device on
> the Nova II I had in grad school. Paper tape input will make a man of
you.
> Of course I hated it, but don't be unkind. :-)
>
> --
> Bob (Chief Pilot, White Knuckle Airways)
>
Yeah, who you foolin', ...you got your first reports off the telegraph!!

[Brenor Brophy]

For those that are interested a very well written piece of Open Source
software for decoding METARs is called PHPWeather and is available at
http://phpweather.sourceforge.net/. PHP is a script language that runs on a
web server and outputs HTML to your browser. As computer languages go, it is
not very intimidating to anyone with basic programming skills.

For an example of its output here is the translations for the following
METAR from Reid Hillview Airport:

KRHV 230149Z 20008KT 10SM SCT045 SCT065 BKN150 15/07 A2990

"This is a report for San Jose / Reid / Hillv, United States. The report was
made one hour and 3 minutes ago, at 01:49 UTC. The wind was blowing at a
speed of 4.1 meters per second (9.2 miles per hour) from south/southwest
(200°). The temperature was 15 °C (59 °F), with a dew-point at 7 °C (45 °F).
The atmospheric pressure was 1013 hPa (29.90 inHg). The relative humidity
was 58.7%. There were scattered clouds at a height of 1372 meter (4500
feet), scattered clouds at a height of 1981 meter (6500 feet), and broken
clouds at a height of 4572 meter (15000 feet). The overall visibility was
16.1 kilometers (10.0 miles). "

I have had a lot of fun with this software. An early version of an
application that uses it, that I am working on can be seen on my
webpage(http://www.brenorbrophy.com/). It is called Micro Wx - it outputs a
small (both screen image and bytes) current weather summary suitable for a
web capable cell phone. Before anyone chimes in with how this has been done
before - I know, but it hasn't been done exactly the way I want it and my
version has. Funnily enough, I would have originally agreed strongly with
the OP - why the hell do we still work with these abbreviations invented for
the bandwidth of a telex machine in the era of the Internet. Well now it
appears your typical wireless cellphone connection (and tiny screen) has
taken us back to telex style.

-Brenor

"Nathan Young" > wrote in message
...
> On Fri, 22 Apr 2005 14:35:52 -0400, Peter Clark
> > wrote:
>
>>On Fri, 22 Apr 2005 12:37:54 -0500, wrote:
>>
>>>KHSV 221553Z 19009KT 6SM BR FEW020 BKN035 OVC100 19/18 A2986 RMK
>>> AO2 TSE00RAE11 SLP104 TS MOV NE P0000 T01890178=
>>>
>>>I know, and I can read it. And someone is going to say that they
>>>prefer it that way.
>>>
>>>I can just see an ASR-33 Teletype machine jumping up and down and
>>>saying that 10 characters per second is what God made for us.
>>
>>How about FDL uplinks? I think they're only around 30K/s. I'd rather
>>see that used uploading the Nexrad info rather than English form
>>METAR.
>>
>>The translation of the raw data is trivial to do in the client end of
>>the system (a-la the Bendix KDR510/810, or the XM weather in the
>>G1000, it shows both decoded and raw-data TAF and raw-data METAR if
>>available for the reporting stations).
>
> It is not as trivial as it should be. METAR decoder software is
> difficult to write because of the special weather statements that can
> be included in a METAR entry (things like RVR, multiple precip types,
> etc).
>
> Simple parsers can grab winds, date, time, and cloud conditions. But
> to be all-encompassing requires a bit more. I found a package (via
> NOAA?) that would do METAR decodes, and it included approximately 30KB
> of source code, which seemed like a lot for the extra bit of
> functionality it provided.
>
>

[[email protected]]

On Fri, 22 Apr 2005 18:14:47 GMT, Nathan Young
> wrote:

>On Fri, 22 Apr 2005 12:37:54 -0500, wrote:
>
>>KHSV 221553Z 19009KT 6SM BR FEW020 BKN035 OVC100 19/18 A2986 RMK
>> AO2 TSE00RAE11 SLP104 TS MOV NE P0000 T01890178=
>>
>>I know, and I can read it. And someone is going to say that they
>>prefer it that way.
>
>I prefer it this way. Once you are used to it, it is shorthand, and
>is quicker to read than the longhand version, which would read
>something like this...
>
>Huntsville International Airport, April 22, 1553Z weather. Winds
>190@09kts, 6 statute miles visibility in mist. Few clouds at 2000
>feet, broken cloulds at 3500 feet, overcast clouds at 10,000 feet.
>Temperature 19 deg C, dewpoint 18 deg C, Altimeter 29.86...
>

Good job, so far... I noticed you didn't decode the remarks portion,
which is what I found far from easy to read. Shorthand is great, but
in this case there were severe thunderstorms approaching the field.

Mike Weller

[BTIZ]

what ever happened to the circle symbols... talk about short hand... o =
clear

BT

> wrote in message
news:1114227509.552ad76fa6ff3c3e3a64c79a202a8f06@o nlynews...
> On Fri, 22 Apr 2005 18:14:47 GMT, Nathan Young
> > wrote:
>
>>On Fri, 22 Apr 2005 12:37:54 -0500, wrote:
>>
>>>KHSV 221553Z 19009KT 6SM BR FEW020 BKN035 OVC100 19/18 A2986 RMK
>>> AO2 TSE00RAE11 SLP104 TS MOV NE P0000 T01890178=
>>>
>>>I know, and I can read it. And someone is going to say that they
>>>prefer it that way.
>>
>>I prefer it this way. Once you are used to it, it is shorthand, and
>>is quicker to read than the longhand version, which would read
>>something like this...
>>
>>Huntsville International Airport, April 22, 1553Z weather. Winds
>>190@09kts, 6 statute miles visibility in mist. Few clouds at 2000
>>feet, broken cloulds at 3500 feet, overcast clouds at 10,000 feet.
>>Temperature 19 deg C, dewpoint 18 deg C, Altimeter 29.86...
>>
>
> Good job, so far... I noticed you didn't decode the remarks portion,
> which is what I found far from easy to read. Shorthand is great, but
> in this case there were severe thunderstorms approaching the field.
>
> Mike Weller
>
>
>

[Scott D.]

On Sat, 23 Apr 2005 03:02:23 GMT, "Brenor Brophy"
> wrote:

>For those that are interested a very well written piece of Open Source
>software for decoding METARs is called PHPWeather and is available at
>http://phpweather.sourceforge.net/. PHP is a script language that runs on a
>web server and outputs HTML to your browser. As computer languages go, it is
>not very intimidating to anyone with basic programming skills.
>
A buddy of mine wrote a simple PHP script that does the same thing
except it creates an image file for the output on the web site. I now
use it on my web site for my students to show the current METAR for
COS and PUB. The biggest difference between his and PHPweather
(except for the HTML/Image difference) is PHPWeather is about 2.8 megs
large, where the one I use is only 2KB and the image that it creates
is about 500 bytes. Since I don't care about weather clear on the
other side of the world this works fine and all I have to do is pull
up my web site and its there. I don't have to select what airport I
want.


Scott D

To email remove spamcatcher

[Brenor Brophy]

Agreed, PHPWeather does everything - so it is usually a lot more than anyone
needs. It is really made as a set of programming tools (classes really) that
you can pick and choose from to create your own weather application. For
example, I just use it to fetch the METAR and parse it into a form my own
code can easily use to determine if the conditions are VFR/MVFR/IFR/LIFR and
then color code the airport name and weather graphic I display on a radar
map. The 2.8M doesn't get downloaded - it stays on the web server (so the
size of teh script really doesn't matter - web hosting companies are not
that stingy on space anymore - at least they shouldn't be). The only thing
that gets downloaded is whatever the output of the script is - and this can
be very compact indeed.

-Brenor


<Scott D.> wrote in message
...
> On Sat, 23 Apr 2005 03:02:23 GMT, "Brenor Brophy"
> > wrote:
>
>>For those that are interested a very well written piece of Open Source
>>software for decoding METARs is called PHPWeather and is available at
>>http://phpweather.sourceforge.net/. PHP is a script language that runs on
>>a
>>web server and outputs HTML to your browser. As computer languages go, it
>>is
>>not very intimidating to anyone with basic programming skills.
>>
> A buddy of mine wrote a simple PHP script that does the same thing
> except it creates an image file for the output on the web site. I now
> use it on my web site for my students to show the current METAR for
> COS and PUB. The biggest difference between his and PHPweather
> (except for the HTML/Image difference) is PHPWeather is about 2.8 megs
> large, where the one I use is only 2KB and the image that it creates
> is about 500 bytes. Since I don't care about weather clear on the
> other side of the world this works fine and all I have to do is pull
> up my web site and its there. I don't have to select what airport I
> want.
>
>
> Scott D
>
> To email remove spamcatcher

[Cub Driver]

On Fri, 22 Apr 2005 12:37:54 -0500, wrote:

>Kind of like the farmers here who said that we were messing with God's
>time when we went to daylight savings time.

Are you suggesting that they were wrong?

Or can your cows read a clock?


-- all the best, Dan Ford

email (put Cubdriver in subject line)

Warbird's Forum: www.warbirdforum.com
Piper Cub Forum: www.pipercubforum.com
the blog: www.danford.net
In Search of Lost Time: www.readingproust.com

[Nathan Young]

On Fri, 22 Apr 2005 19:55:22 GMT, Nathan Young
> wrote:

>It is not as trivial as it should be. METAR decoder software is
>difficult to write because of the special weather statements that can
>be included in a METAR entry (things like RVR, multiple precip types,
>etc).
>
>Simple parsers can grab winds, date, time, and cloud conditions. But
>to be all-encompassing requires a bit more. I found a package (via
>NOAA?) that would do METAR decodes, and it included approximately 30KB
>of source code, which seemed like a lot for the extra bit of
>functionality it provided.

My memory was hazy. I found the original link from which I grabbed
the source code.
http://www.nws.noaa.gov/oso/metardcd.shtml

The link is broken, but it lists the source code as 49k compressed or
413k uncompressed source code.

Either way, that's a ton of code!

[Scott D.]

On Sat, 23 Apr 2005 05:32:07 GMT, "Brenor Brophy"
> wrote:

>Agreed, PHPWeather does everything - so it is usually a lot more than anyone
>needs. It is really made as a set of programming tools (classes really) that
>you can pick and choose from to create your own weather application. For
>example, I just use it to fetch the METAR and parse it into a form my own
>code can easily use to determine if the conditions are VFR/MVFR/IFR/LIFR and
>then color code the airport name and weather graphic I display on a radar
>map. The 2.8M doesn't get downloaded - it stays on the web server (so the
>size of teh script really doesn't matter - web hosting companies are not
>that stingy on space anymore - at least they shouldn't be). The only thing
>that gets downloaded is whatever the output of the script is - and this can
>be very compact indeed.

Well, true. I just didnt need all the features and the hassels of
setting it up, so this smaller one workes just fine. I just wished I
had time to dink around with it so it would skim off TAFs as well. I
just never seem to find enough time to mess with code anymore.


Scott D

To email remove spamcatcher

[Don Tuite]

On Sat, 23 Apr 2005 06:21:42 -0400, Cub Driver
> wrote:

>On Fri, 22 Apr 2005 12:37:54 -0500, wrote:
>
>>Kind of like the farmers here who said that we were messing with God's
>>time when we went to daylight savings time.
>
>Are you suggesting that they were wrong?
>
>Or can your cows read a clock?

Dan, these folks don't understand that both farmers and the farm
animals are conditioned to listen to the Farm Report on the radio
first thing every morning, where the local version of Les Nessen reads
the day's futures prices for sow bellies and so forth. It gives the
farmers some hope they're going to be able to pay off this year's
loans, and for the animals, well, it's like the way silverbacks like
you and I read the obituaries. Now along comes daylight savings time,
and they're getting the news an hour later. It's unsettling.

Don

[[email protected]]

On Sat, 23 Apr 2005 06:21:42 -0400, Cub Driver
> wrote:

>On Fri, 22 Apr 2005 12:37:54 -0500, wrote:
>
>>Kind of like the farmers here who said that we were messing with God's
>>time when we went to daylight savings time.
>
>Are you suggesting that they were wrong?
>

Of course not! Especially after the lightning stroke that I took
right after I posted the original message.

>Or can your cows read a clock?
>

No, but my dogs sure can. It confuses the crap out of them
(literally) when the 6 o'clock news gal, and her music, are out of
sync with their stomachs.

>
>-- all the best, Dan Ford
>

Mike Weller

[George Patterson]

wrote:
>
> No, but my dogs sure can. It confuses the crap out of them
> (literally) when the 6 o'clock news gal, and her music, are out of
> sync with their stomachs.

Same with my cats. Furthermore, one of my cats "owns" my stepson. We have
custody of Peter on weekends. Meercat knows how many days are in a week and,
consequently, what day Friday is. She hangs out near the front door all
afternoon every Friday. If, for some reason, Peter doesn't come home on Friday,
Meerie goes into fugue state. It gets really nasty during summer camp time.

Then she'll bite Peter for being late when he finally does show up. :-)

George Patterson
There's plenty of room for all of God's creatures. Right next to the
mashed potatoes.

[CryptWolf]

"Nathan Young" > wrote in message
...
> On Fri, 22 Apr 2005 19:55:22 GMT, Nathan Young
> > wrote:
>
> >It is not as trivial as it should be. METAR decoder software is
> >difficult to write because of the special weather statements that can
> >be included in a METAR entry (things like RVR, multiple precip types,
> >etc).
> >
> >Simple parsers can grab winds, date, time, and cloud conditions. But
> >to be all-encompassing requires a bit more. I found a package (via
> >NOAA?) that would do METAR decodes, and it included approximately 30KB
> >of source code, which seemed like a lot for the extra bit of
> >functionality it provided.
>
> My memory was hazy. I found the original link from which I grabbed
> the source code.
> http://www.nws.noaa.gov/oso/metardcd.shtml
>
> The link is broken, but it lists the source code as 49k compressed or
> 413k uncompressed source code.

I did a quick search and came up with:
http://nws.noaa.gov/tg/software.html

This link works and the METAR source files are near the bottom of the page.
One link I found describes the source code as having some issues.
I'm of the opinion that there is a smaller better way.

[Brian Burger]

On Fri, 22 Apr 2005, Nathan Young wrote:

> On Fri, 22 Apr 2005 12:37:54 -0500, wrote:
>
> >KHSV 221553Z 19009KT 6SM BR FEW020 BKN035 OVC100 19/18 A2986 RMK
> > AO2 TSE00RAE11 SLP104 TS MOV NE P0000 T01890178=
> >
> >I know, and I can read it. And someone is going to say that they
> >prefer it that way.
>
> I prefer it this way. Once you are used to it, it is shorthand, and
> is quicker to read than the longhand version, which would read
> something like this...

Not only that, the basic format is international. Everything before RMK is
pretty standard worldwide, so I (a Canadian) don't have to know exact
details of how the US does their weather reports. I can just run through
the standard code.

The US NOAA/FAA ADDS wx website allows you to check *any* airport or wx
reporting site w/ a standard code. The reports aren't all "translated"
into the US standard encoding system, but the fundamentals should be
readable by anyone with a private pilots license.

Besides, I really can read the coded versions far faster than the "plain
language" versions, and that's true of many, many pilots. Get a half-dozen
airports onto one screen (or sheet of paper) and compare them all at a
glance, more or less.


>
> Huntsville International Airport, April 22, 1553Z weather. Winds
> 190@09kts, 6 statute miles visibility in mist. Few clouds at 2000
> feet, broken cloulds at 3500 feet, overcast clouds at 10,000 feet.
> Temperature 19 deg C, dewpoint 18 deg C, Altimeter 29.86...

Or even longer versions. Check how NavCanada does "plain language" wx
reports for seriously verbose
translations.(www.flightplanning.navcanada.ca) The code versions are three
lines; the "plain" ones are half a screenful...

The encoded METAR/TAFs might have started as a reaction to low-bandwidth
telegraph/teletype machines, but they're still a remarkably effecient way
of delivering wx data to trained people!

Brian
PP-ASEL/Night

[Dylan Smith]

In article <1114190529.b66f5cddb1aec1ba47dfaf0f4432d36e@onlyne ws>, wrote:
> KHSV 221553Z 19009KT 6SM BR FEW020 BKN035 OVC100 19/18 A2986 RMK
> AO2 TSE00RAE11 SLP104 TS MOV NE P0000 T01890178=
>
> I know, and I can read it. And someone is going to say that they
> prefer it that way.

Yes. It fits on the small screen of my cell phone very well. I'd hate to
have to read three or four pages of 'human language' TAF on the small
screen of my phone (which is very handy for getting weather updates when
you're in the middle of nowhere). Even a nasty complex forecast fits on
one screen.

If you're using a computer, even DUATS will give you human language
forecasts. If you don't have a need to read METAR/TAF, you never have
to, I don't think I've encountered weather sites that can't translate
them.

--
Dylan Smith, Castletown, Isle of Man
Flying: http://www.dylansmith.net
Frontier Elite Universe: http://www.alioth.net
"Maintain thine airspeed, lest the ground come up and smite thee"

[John T]

Peter Clark wrote:
>
> Should be trivial to write for those who know how to do such things.

If I could have a dollar for every time a client said that... :)

Of course, that line is usually followed by something like "why do we need
requirements?"

--
John T
http://tknowlogy.com/TknoFlyer
http://www.pocketgear.com/products_search.asp?developerid=4415
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