Working on this stuff for impending exams, I can't help wondering why it has to be so obscure. Presumably it was developed to save bandwidth on slow teletype links. But now it rather feels like an initiation ritual
I get that if you are scanning METARs and TAFs everyday, they becomes second nature, but what about radar reports, winds aloft and PIREPS? How often do you guys scan those? As a beginner, I can't help wondering why there is no consistency in abbreviations - timestamps can be as date-time groups or hours or hours and mins depending on context. Why do FD (or is that FB) reports save one lousy digit by encoding wind speeds >99Kn by adding 50 to the bearing ! and another by dropping the minus on temps above 24,000' ? How come UA means a routine PIREP but UUA means urgent?!