Met Services
 

I'm finding the autometar in NZ pretty useless for GA - especially info about cloud and visibility. Anyone else finding the same?

Anything more specific?

Understand the limitations and don't rely heavily on the data given.

It is still an invaluable tool!

There appears to be a great variation in vis between TAF, METAR, ARFOR and ATIS with the ATIS being the most accurate - why bother to have vis and cloud in the auto metars if it is so inaccurate.. I look at all the other data available and it does help - esp with cloud cover with satellite maps but they don't give much indication of heights. Whem I fly down to the south island its even worse - esp on the west coast wher most of the info seems to come fron the autometar. It seems pointless to have such inaccurate info when it used to be so good in the past. We are going backwards it seems. We should be able to trust the weather info we get.

In my opinion they are quite accurate when there is a solid base and crap vis - also not bad when the wx is pretty good for wind and QNH....... it is the in between when they are not so good when there are multiple layers and fluctuating vis. Like the others said - understand the limitations and work around them - the reason for the fluctuations in things like cloud base/vis between the METARs and TAFs is because one is issued every 30 mins and one every 6 hours or so