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Old 4th Mar 2010, 00:15
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Cirronimbus
 
Join Date: Nov 2009
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I think BackSeatDriver's explanation is probably closer to the mark than mine. Not sure what F9 means but 181/015 certainly could be the max wind since 00Z (perhaps from a small storm or shower that dropped the 2.4mm of rain?). There are lots of groups appended to the raw messages that are (supposed to be) removed prior to dissemination to the end users.

Sometimes they indicate such things as the period of time that the wind speed or direction is averaged over (for eg). They will even add groups that show the battery voltage and internal temperature of the automatic weather station.If all of that stuff was not removed, decoding metars would be a nightmare!!! The 688 might be a message sequence number or some such thing. I doubt is would be indicating a pressure of 1006.88; I don't think they measure pressure to two decimal places.

The temp/dewpoint spread could be because of the humid conditions (wet season and it has rained there), the water that wets the wet bulb temp sensor could be almost dried up, or frogs could be sitting on the moist material around the wet bulb temp sensor (they do that and can affect the temps!).

I like Peter's take on indicating wind and rain; nice one.

Cheers,

Cn
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