Interesting thread.
I work at a flying school and I ferry aircraft about in the South and Midlands when I'm not at 'work' so I find myself taking a daily view on the METARs and TAFs. Exeter, Bristol, Bournemouth, Brize, Boscombe, Heathrow and Gatwick are the sites I take most interest in. The reports and forecasts very accurate and have yet to let me down but I have noticed a couple of strange 'local affects'.
Local airfield weather can be very different from the reporting site just a few miles away. Old Sarum and Boscombe is an example where the TAF and METAR can read 9999 and at Old Sarum you can be sat in mist all day, yet the sites are just 2 miles away from each other.
Students and Hirers will read the TAFs and METARs then call the ops desk for our thoughts. Many a time I've had to give a view, taken from the METAR and TAF, significantly different from the information the caller has derived from the same reports. Some read the reports with hope, others with doom and a few incorrectly.
I have noticed a great number who don't use the 215, visible sat or rainfall radars which are also provided by the MO. These are tools which, taken with the TAFs and METARs, should allow us to 'take a view' on the weather and how it may affect the flight.
Forecasters do seem to take an over gloomy view for the TAF and I think it's fair and right to do so. You can plot the weather quite easily using the tools from the MO to decide if you agree with the forecaster or not. I'm not trying to teach anyone to suck eggs here but I've seen so few do it, seemingly stuck using
just the TAF and METAR reports.
With all due respect to the people who have made complaints about the failings of the MO - Bose has provided a direct route to the heart of the organisation and you should provide the information and prove your complaint to be true and not just some pointless winge, which in reality proves nothing more than your own inability or lack of willing to read the weather correctly for yourself. From where I'm sitting it looks like the latter, as every TAF forecaster and METAR report downwind of your planned flight had to have been wrong, all day, including the 215 forecast and the weather radars. How likely is that then?
I await with a large humble pie at the ready.
