Military METARS!!

[swashplate]

Hello chaps/esses!!

Just been browsing the Met Office website. Here's the METAR for a top-secret mil airbase 'somewhere in england' !! :D :D

EGVN 05/1650 051650Z 24009KT CAVOK 21/07 Q1015 BLU NOSIG=

What does BLU mean??? :confused:

Also noticed other colour codes...??

[dwaynedibley]

I am sure it is simply the met mans way of telling you how he is feeling... Well wouldn't you.
Won't be long before the even the abbreviations are written in full. They are even putting TAF and METAR at the start of the info on MOMIDS, just in case Mil Aircrew cant work it out I imagine :confused:

[Tocsin]

And ATC - Red (with apoplexy) when you land...

To be serious, METAR from military reporting stations gives a one-stop colour code to provide an appreciation of the weather state. It looks very pretty when shown graphically on a map.

Let's see if I can dig it out:
Black closed non-met
Red cloud <200ft and/or vis <800m
Amber <300, vis <1600
Yellow <700, vis <3700
Green <1500, vis <5km
White <2500, vis <8
Blue >=2500, vis >=8

Hope that helps!

[swashplate]

Thanks for that, Tocsin!!!

Yes, I imagine that looks good on a map. You'd know 'at a glance' where was best to land etc. :cool:

Why can't the civvy fields do this then..... :confused:

[Out Of Trim]

Military Airfields have been doing this for "Donkeys Years" - Pretty Good in my opinion.. :)

[Tripe Loch]

Is someone admitting that we Mil people do SOMETHING better than our civvie brethren?

[ 05 August 2001: Message edited by: Tripe Loch ]

[callsign Metman]

Just adding to Tocsins post..the colour code for an airfield is determined by the lowest vis (in any direction) or the lowest cloud base of at LEAST 3 oktas (3/8 ths of the sky).
For example a lowest vis of 10KM with 2 oktas stratus at 400ft would qualify as BLU conditions. However if the duty Met man then observed 3 oktas then the airfield colour state would become YLO. As flight safety goes I think it's an excellent system although afters years of writing BLU, WHT, GRN, YLO etc I often mispell them in everday use away from work.

:D

Regards

CM

[ShyTorque]

I believe that the system was designed around flying training.

Pre-relating colours to Wx minima made it much simpler for a duty authoriser to quickly assess whether or not a student/s (of which there used to be many) should be programmed and allowed to fly a particular type of sortie at his phase of the course.

ShyT

[Dan Winterland]

Or flying single pilot approaching base at high speed (not that I was good enough to be allowed to do that) you dont have to write much down or remember much when told your airfield is "Runway 26, Yellow, Fully Serviceable". Yellow tells you that you need a radar recovery without having to think too much.

[BEagle]

Colour states are extremely helpful - stay away from the pretty ones though. You do indeed need a radar service when it's YLO, Dan!! Got my ar$e famously chewed for schneebling in to Wattisham leading a pair of F4s in 1981. Had been sold the fable that 'FJ mates don't do radars', so punched in VMC underneath and broke into the circuit. "Why didn't you split us for individual PARs" said the oh-so-helpful auth in the #2 jet.....at the debrief.
Sqn mates thought it looked pretty cool though!!

[Pub User]

You boys are very brave going into those cloudy-things.

Anything above amber sounds like pretty good VFR weather to me. :cool: