When I started my aviation training in 1993, I remember several transitions had recently happened. Airspace was now about letters (eg Class C vs TRSA). Weather was about METARS/TAF. The National Weather Service (NWS) was the go-to for various guides and tools.
NOAA (National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration) have a useful newsletter – called “The Front” – that comes out every so often, with interesting updates.
Within the October 2020 issue, is an article regarding a major update to their Pilot’s Guide to Aviation Weather Services. Over the years, there have been many technological advances, and numerous sources that we can retrieve weather information from.
I’ll be using this revised guide to structure various pages/posts in my blog for my own weather refresher. In the past, I used DUATS (Direct User Access Terminal) via modem dial-up and also visited the local FSS (Flight Service Station). Things have expanded since then.
The guide has a general flow of pre-flight (days before a planned flight), to day-of, and during the actual flight. There are various links to all the tools and references we can access. Nowadays, tools like Foreflight are really popular. Some of the information doesn’t apply to me (Traffic Flow, but it maybe interesting); Alaska and Hawaii; International Products. Looks like there has been some enhancement to the NWS GFA (Graphical Forecast for Aviation) tools.
All good stuff, as pilots are weather junkies.
