For flight planning purposes it's the TAFs we should be looking at.
Tis true, but we fly in actual not forcast weather. Hence the need to know what the METARs are too.
It is a bit alarming to read that some of the righteous folks on here seem to think that it is 'a good thing' that someone pays for his transgression of the law with the death penalty whereas under the laws of this country a fine and custodial sentence would have been applied were the assumptions made on here correct and this case would have been heard in court.