A Picture is Worth More Than Two Lines

Despite the availability of high-speed internet access and an abundance of websites carrying aviation weather, not much has changed in how pilots obtain weather information. Student pilots still spend a great deal of time learning to decode METAR, TAF and the FA. The FAA knowledge tests, flight reviews and instructors will make you believe that decoding the two-letter codes such as “BR” and “MI” are the cornerstones of weather knowledge. Nothing could be further from the truth. These codes might have been of great value in the days when weather data was sent by teletype terminals. A printout of several METAR observations allowed one to efficiently scan multiple stations and get a quick idea of the current conditions. Although more useful products like the weather depiction chart and significant weather prognosis chart were available, we simply did not have enough bandwidth to get these charts into the hands of pilots. But things have changed. Downloading a chart doesn’t take any longer than downloading the raw text data. Charts provide the big picture of the weather by including information from hundreds of stations across the country all at once. They are, quite literally, worth a thousand words.