Aviation Weather: METAR, TAF and Regional Briefings
aviationwheater.siten.co is our aviation weather reference: every METAR and TAF field decoded in order, the hazards that actually cancel flights, and a briefing for each part of the world.
Reading the reports
Aviation weather is five numbers — wind, visibility, cloud base, temperature and pressure — published in a code written for teleprinters and still in use today. The site starts there and does not stop at the abbreviation table: it explains what each field changes about a real flight.
- How to Read a METAR: Every Field, in Order
- How to Read a TAF: Change Groups, Windows and Probability
- METAR and TAF Abbreviations: The Complete Decoder Table
- What Is Aviation Weather? The Five Numbers That Decide a Flight
Hazards, and which ones can be forecast
A cancelled flight is almost never about rain. It is icing, convection, crosswind or a runway that no longer meets the contamination limit, and each of those has a different forecast horizon.
- Aircraft Icing Explained: Where It Forms, and Why It Is So Serious
- Thunderstorms and Convective Weather: Why Aircraft Go Around Them
- Turbulence: The Four Types, and Which Ones Can Be Forecast
- Winter Operations: De-icing, Holdover Times and Contaminated Runways
Planning a flight
Limits, briefing order and the arithmetic that turns a wind report into a single usable number.
- Weather Minimums: What VFR and IFR Actually Require
- The Preflight Weather Briefing: A Checklist That Works
- Crosswind and Runway Condition: Turning Wind Into a Number
- Where Aviation Weather Actually Comes From (and Which Sources Count)
Regional briefings
The same METAR means different things in different places: North Atlantic icing, South Asian monsoon TAFs and Mediterranean summer convection each have their own season and their own failure mode. Twelve regions, each with its ICAO reference stations and the months that matter.
- All twelve regions
- The North Atlantic and Arctic
- South Asia
- North America
- Western Europe
- Aviation Weather by Region: What Each Part of the World Briefs For
- Monsoon and Tropical Aviation Weather: Flying the Wet Season
Where to start
New to the reports, start with the METAR guide and then the TAF. Already flying, go straight to the index.
Frequently asked questions
What is aviationwheater.siten.co?
A free aviation weather reference. It decodes METAR and TAF reports field by field, explains the hazards behind delays and diversions — icing, convection, turbulence, crosswind and contaminated runways — and publishes a briefing for each of twelve world regions. It is editorial reference material in twelve languages, not an official meteorological service, and it never replaces a briefing from your national provider.
Where should I start if I have never read a METAR?
Start with the METAR guide, which walks through the report in the order the fields appear, then the TAF guide for forecasts and change groups, and keep the abbreviation decoder open beside both. The preflight briefing checklist then puts the two together in the order you would actually use them.
Does the site cover regions outside Europe and North America?
Yes. Twelve regions are covered, including South Asia, Southeast Asia, East Asia, Oceania, Africa, South America, the Middle East and the North Atlantic, each with its reference stations, its dominant hazards and the months in which they occur.