Do you know the THREE types of weather reports?

[Music] Welcome to the OnCenterline Podcast, a show where we discuss the trials and tribulations of learning to fly from both the student and flight instructor perspectives. We feature real aviators in all different chapters of their careers, talking about the things we all deal with, but rarely discuss. So join us as we take on the challenges, hardships and celebrations that pave the runway to be in a professional aviator as we strive to stay onCenterline. [Music] Hello everybody. Welcome back to the OnCenterline Podcast. I am your host Sam Terrell. I am the Northwest Air-Nought on YouTube and thank you for joining me. When I say welcome back, I don't really mean it for you. It kind of mean it for me. I have to apologize and know it's been quite a few months since I got any content out, certainly on the podcast and mostly on the YouTube channel as well. It has been a hectic time, of course, trying to take advantage of all the last little bits of nice weather we had throughout the fall, which we had a beautiful fall. And now finally, we're in mid-late December almost. It's the holidays. Most of the good weather is gone, although we see a little bit here and there in the Northwest. And I have another good reason, excuse for being a little absent. And for those of you watching on YouTube, you can see him right here. This is Bowie. We got Bowie unexpectedly back in early October. I had actually just taken a trip, a ferry day at RV 12 to Alabama and had a great trip. But on my way back home, my wife texted me and she sent me this video of this little puppy she saw out on a walk and she just said, "Can we get them? Can we get them? Please, please, please." And of course, we've been without any dogs for almost a year at this point coming up in January. I knew it was only matter of time before we caved to the first cute face we found and Bowie was it. So, he's a blue healer, cattle dog, Australian cattle dog mixed with pit bull, primarily. But he also has some stuff or triot area and surprisingly some rotwiler in there as well. So as you may have imagine, being a puppy, he's been keeping us quite busy, very little sleep overall and it makes it hard to record any podcast or YouTube videos because typically he's going to be bugging me. Fortunately, right now he's over there sleeping on the couch and I'm going to try to keep it that way while we do this recording. But anyway, I want to wish you all a very Merry Christmas, a very happy New Year, a happy Hanukkah, happy Kwanza and any other holiday you guys are celebrating this time of year. Me and my wife are getting ready to head out on a New Year's cruise here. We'll be leaving on the 27th and coming back on the 3rd. But I really wanted to get an episode out here before the years end to number one say thank you to everyone out there who is listening to the podcast, who is watching the YouTube videos. And especially those of you who reach out to me to tell me how much these are helping you. That really helps keep me going and I wish I could be putting out more and I promise I've got a lot of great content planned and it's just a matter of finding the time and energy to get it recorded and all that. So stick with me out there and thank you all for your support. Thank you all who have donated monetarily either through my Venmo or through a super thanks here on YouTube or for those of you who are members of the channel here. Thank you to my members. I could not do this without all of your support. Thank you very much. Alright guys so today is going to be a relatively quick episode but I wanted to take the opportunity today to talk more about weather because this is the time of year for it here in the well Northern Hemisphere really. We've got lots of weather happening and specifically I wanted to talk about three different types of weather reports because not understanding the types of weather reports that we have available to us can sometimes make it hard to interpret what those reports are telling us or how to use them. So we're going to be focusing on these three different types of reports and how we can use them to get the best sense possible of what the weather is doing and also how much risk we might want to take with certain weather phenomena. Alright so first I'm going to give you some examples. I'm going to give you one example of each type of report and see if you can figure out what type they are. So first example might be a winds and temperatures aloft report. Second example would be say a metar at an airport and then finally a third example might be something like an air met. So can you think of what each one of those those are all those those three different examples are three different types of reports. Do you know what type of report each one is? Well the winds and temps aloft is a forecast right. We talk about the winds and temps aloft forecast and of course a forecast is a report about what is expected to come right what is expected to happen over the next period of time whatever that is. Alright now a metar well that's not a forecast right. Meetars we get from airport stations right stations at certain airports typically and often combined as an atus but the metar is an observation it's an observation of what is happening right now. Winds and temps aloft for instance would be hey this is what is expected to happen in the future or what the weather will be. The metar is this is what the weather is right. Of course another type of forecast that's similar to the metar or related to the metar is the tap right the terminal area forecast and both of those cover the same area they cover four nautical miles from the station. So generally if it's at the airport you can think of it as being four nautical miles from the center of the airport basically the radius of class delta airspace alright. So four nautical miles five statute miles is basically the area that a metar and a tap are meant to cover. Alright so we've got forecast and we have observations what's going to happen in the future what is happening now. So if an air met is not a forecast or an observation what would an air met be. Well an air met is as I've said and said in the past I call it it's a warning that conditions may exist. Also known as an advisory. An air met is an advisory of course that would include signals as well CWA's center weather advisories. These are advisories not necessarily saying that something will happen or even necessarily saying that something is happening but generally take air mits for example you know we see air met Zulu's for icing or air met tangos for turbulence and they cover huge vast ranges of area right thousands and thousands of square miles sometimes multiple states okay. So what the advisory is saying is that somewhere in this area the forecast combined with the maybe observations have let us to believe you may encounter this type of a severe or hazardous weather phenomenon okay. Generally the advisories are about more hazardous weather conditions right forecast they could be forecasting some hazardous weather but in general you know forecast are going to forecast all types of weather even if it's good weather okay and of course observations are could be anything okay. But the advisories are typically just warning us that a certain condition may exist. And when you look at how big of an area that these cover you can't just count on that condition existing in your flight path. We have to corroborate the advisory with other information to get a better idea of if in fact we will encounter whatever that is turbulence icing. So on so forth. Okay? So really, we have to use all of these types of reports. We have to corroborate them with each other to get as clear of a picture as possible of what the weather's actually going to be on a given flight. Okay? And oftentimes, you know, fork hasts themselves will use observations in order to make those predictions of what's to come, right? When you think about the winds and temps a loft report, well, how do we get those forecasts? How do we get that information? We get it by sending up weather balloons and seeing exactly how quickly they're moving and what the temperatures are. So basically, we're able to gather an observation, right? Information via an observation and extrapolate that or interpolate it or whatever. And, you know, take note, I'm not a meteorologist. I don't know exactly how these things work. But basically, they're going to take that observation of what those winds are and be able to say with some sort of certainty how they will continue to be throughout the next 12, 24 hours, all right? So we have our forecasts, we have our observations. What would be another example of an observation? What would be, well, let's say you get an air mitt for icing, okay? There's an air mitt for icing along your route of flight. Well, again, this is covering thousands of square miles. How do we know if icing's actually going to be an issue for us? Well, number one, are we flying VFR or IFR? Or what are we planning to fly? If we're flying VFR, then presumably, we're not going to plan to be in any clouds, visible moisture. If we are in rain, presumably, we would stay out of the freezing levels with rain. But if we're IFR, well, that would be something to consider and what else can we consider to know if icing's going to be a factor? Well, first of all, how about cloud reports? Where's the ceiling? Just because we might be in above the freezing level in really cold conditions, doesn't mean that we're going to be in the clouds, right? So we got to look at where the freezing level is, what the temperatures are, okay? And then see where the base of the clouds are forecast to be or sometimes where the tops of the clouds are forecast to be. Because you might be cruising at 6,8,000 and you might have tops at 4,000. So you'll climb through a layer of clouds, ideally, throughout the tubes that are above freezing. And then you get into freezing temperatures, but you're above the layer of clouds. So icing's not going to be too much of an issue. If the freezing level was below the clouds, and you had to climb through those clouds to get on top, well, that would be something to consider. And we have to plan for the risk management of possibly accumulating some ice as we climb through that layer of clouds before we get on top, okay? Because remember, just because you're not in the clouds, that would mean that once you get on top of those clouds, you're not going to necessarily accumulate any more ice. But any ice you have accumulated along the way is not going to melt off if you are below freezing. So we've got always consider that. Now, what would be an observation we could use to tell us whether or not icing is going to be an issue along our route? Well, there's one type of observation that is always the best type, if you ask me, the go to observation, a report, if you will, given by other pilots. Of course, I'm talking about a pilot rep. Pilot reports are the best corroborative evidence to use if you can find them, that will tell you whether or not a certain air met or forecast is in fact going to cause an issue for you. So we can look at the fact that we have an air met for icing and we could say, "Okay, you know, that's something to pay attention to, "but it doesn't mean I'm going to get icing "just by flying anywhere in there." So then we can look at, well, where's a freezing level where we are? 'Cause oftentimes those air met for icing will have freezing levels going from a certain altitude up to another certain altitude, right? Basically it says from freezing level, base at zero sometimes, maybe they're the base of the freezing level throughout some parts of that air met is at the surface. So from the surface up to maybe as high as 8,000 feet. So basically within a single air met, the freezing level itself could vary from the surface up to 8,000 feet. Well, if you're in a part of that air met that the freezing levels at 8,000 feet, you don't have to worry as much as the people who are in the part that the freezing levels at the surface have to worry, right? So where's the freezing level where we are and where along our route, where are the cloud bases and the cloud tops, okay? And then most importantly, have there been any reports from other pilots along that route or in that area of icing conditions, all right? So that's how we can kind of use all three of these reports. We have the winds and temps all off forecast, which will tell us what the temps that certain altitudes are expected to be. We can use observations from pyreps and we can use advisories from airmets or signets to tell us, hey, this is the stuff to kind of look out for, all right? But we can never use just one piece of information to make a decision. We have to corroborate all three types of reports and multiple forms of those types of reports, right? The freezing level, the winds and temps all off, airmets, signets, you could use, of course, me, tarz and tafs and you can use pyreps and we can look at the icing forecast itself as well 'cause the icing forecast will tell you based on where the freezing level is and based on what clouds are expected to be in a given area of what your likelihood of getting icing would be and the severity of that icing, okay? So the icing forecast is another great tool to utilize. So, there you have it folks. We have three different types of reports, forecast, observations and advisories. We need to understand which each one is trying to tell us, understand that no one of them is going to be foolproof or that we can just rely on one type. We have to corroborate the information from one report to another, all right? And spread it out between not just different forecasts, right? Not just the winds and temps all off forecast and the icing forecast and all that but spread it out between forecasts and the observations and the advisories to make an informed and risk-managed decision, okay? Hey guys, I hope you have a great holiday season. Thanks so much for bearing with me over the past few months when I've been absent. I hope this episode has at least held you over until I can get some more time here to film more podcasts and more episodes in the actual aircraft. Please, as always, leave a comment down below. If you're here on YouTube, let me know any topics that I can make videos about that would help you or if you have any questions about what we talked about today. I really appreciate you spending time with me today and we will see you next time on "Center One." (upbeat music)