Howdy all. From an ATC point of view, it sounds like poor reportng to me. With regard to changes in the ATIS, some people think some changes are small and insignificnt, but there are times when you have to change it. And I quote from MATS:
5.1.12.1 ATIS information shall be revised and a new code letter assigned when:
a. the requirement for, or type of instrument approach is changed;
b. the take–off or landing runway is changed;
c. changes occur in the operational status of the aerodrome or its facilities;
d. the current values of meteorological information vary by or exceed the following values and are expected to remain that way for at least 15 minutes:
Wind
direction 10 degrees - speed 5 knots
QNH
1 hectopascal
Temperature
1 degree
Cloud (below 5,000 AGL)
base 200 FT - amount changes from one descriptor to another
Visibility
Between 2,000 M and 10KM - 1000 M (1KM);
Less than 2,000 M - RVR, when available, shall be recorded.
e. Changes to windshear status.
These are when we have to change the ATIS. I don't know about doing the mandatory half hour ATIS change - it would be pretty pointless in some locations. I remember having the same ATIS on for 6 hours once! Why bother changing it for changes sake? It was perfectally accurate.
Ramjager: Just a quick one. While I whould heartedly agree with your post and about the accuracy of the ATIS, I was quite interested to hear you talking about briefing/performing a full instrument APP or just enough of it to get visual. Is this common practice? I didn't know that that went on. If you don't brief it all the way to the minimas and you don't get visual at the expected level, do your company SOPs allow you to continue down or do you have to do a missed approach? Why bother briefing/flying it at all if you only do half of it? Wouldn't it be better to just do the lot 'just incase'? You have proved already that this may save your hide once in a while....
Keg: Good post. It is a big team game and we are all on the same side.
I think good reading for ATC and aircrew alike is the following link to weather a related incident at Brisbane.
http://www.atsb.gov.au/aviation/occu...ail.cfm?ID=430
I used it to illustrate to some of the guys who haven't worked a wet season yet just how important it is to get weather info correct and get it out to the people who need to know.
Anyway, enough said. Have a good weekend. Cheers,
NFR.