As a relatively low time pilot I was interested in the comment that TAFs are meant for IFR traffic and not for VFR.
My instructors tell me always to use the Tafs along the route.
Thanks, Peter, for your interest.
Using TAFs along the route is ok. You will catch a lot of the more significant weather. You just might not find out with them if visibility is 5 or 50 miles or ceiling 1600 or 4000 ft amsl and other likewise subtleties. Anything above 8000 m (in Germany 5000 m - national differences !) and 1500 ft agl is not really of interest in a TAF.
Low clouds (with or without drizzle) tend to linger preferrably on the upwind side of hillridges. So the same clouds the TAF discarded as irrelevant for flat airport terrain can be a much bigger nuisance on cross country VFR flights.
Like Robin already indicated, the
low level wind can be a great guidance to identify trouble zones, which will be normally the upwind sides of geographical obstacles, where you should put particular emphasis on getting accurate reports or other information (e.g. trustworthy webcams). Same goes for coastal areas - you need to know, if the wind will blow from the sea or from land.
So like Metman I would recommend to get familiar with weather charts and do some of your own forecast. Use various sources to catch errors.
The UK Met office surface charts might be a good starting point. Then you get a wealth of US model output also for the UK. The GFS model on which this is based, is quite reliable in Europe, but like everything it errs occasionally and you have to be alert to catch these events. A wonderful website - but in German - for such stuff is
Wetterzentrale. In the submenu fax/Bracknell you also find the MET Office surface charts. The GFS (/M-Europa) submenu also offers a lot. There are interfaces in English for this site in existence by third parties.
Drizzle you normally can't see on radar, but else
RADAR is a wonderful means of getting information, what goes on between METARs and other reports.
Your remark about METARs being snapshots can't be emphasized highly enough in convective weather.
Try to get satellite pictures. There are wonderful resources available, such as
Uni Bern (when working) or
Dundee Receiving Station.
To have a look in
vertical soundings is highly advisable to get familiar with the airmass that is just moving into your area. Select continent, time and the diagram type of your choice.
All these sources are good for trip planning and creating a mental picture of the weather situation. They are not intended for operational flight planning, as they may be unreliable and false. However, knowing a little more is never wrong.
Finally I just had a look at the offerings of the subscription service from the UK MET office. Maybe you can have a closer look at it with somebody who has subscribed. The 3 day text outlooks and all the satellite and radar stuff are looking nice.
In Germany, a flight weather subscription service has been a great success since its introduction a long time ago, because it gave pilots a huge degree of independence in choosing their preferred weather resources.
Studying high resolution radar and high quality satellite pictures frequently with the surface analysis in mind will give you a lot of "local experience" countrywide in relatively short time. But that is only my opinion.