01 · Flagship · METAR decoder
METAR, decoded.
Paste any raw METAR — domestic or international — and read it back in plain English. Wind, visibility, ceiling, temperature, dewpoint, altimeter, present weather. Flight category derived live.
No signup ·Works in browser
Section 01
Decode
Section 02
How a METAR is built
A METAR (Meteorological Aerodrome Report) is a routine surface weather observation issued by an airport, generally every hour at 53–58 minutes past the hour. SPECI is the special-issuance variant that interrupts the hourly cycle when conditions change significantly. Both follow the same field order, defined by the World Meteorological Organisation and locally elaborated by ICAO and the FAA.
The body proceeds in a fixed sequence: station · time · (optional
AUTO or COR modifier) · wind · visibility ·
present weather · cloud layers · temperature / dewpoint ·
altimeter · (optional RMK remarks section). The decoder above walks each field
in order; if a token doesn't match the next expected pattern, the parser stops decoding and surfaces
the remainder as raw text.
Flight category is derived from the lowest BKN or OVC cloud layer and the visibility:
VFR = ceiling > 3,000 ft and visibility > 5 SM;
MVFR = ceiling 1,000–3,000 or visibility 3–5;
IFR = ceiling 500–1,000 or visibility 1–3;
LIFR = ceiling < 500 or visibility < 1. These are FAA-standard cuts and are inherited
verbatim from the iOS app.
Section 03
Common pitfalls
- 01 AUTO METARs come from an unattended weather station — they can miss precipitation that the ASOS sensor doesn't catch (e.g., light virga). Treat AUTO weather with appropriate skepticism in pre-frontal conditions.
- 02 The ceiling is the lowest BKN or OVC layer — SCT and FEW do not constitute a ceiling. The decoder reflects this; do not mentally count a SCT layer toward the FAA category.
- 03 Temperature in M-prefix notation means negative (`M03` = −3 °C). It is not a letter from an unrelated section of the report.
- 04 Visibility in P-prefix notation means "greater than" (`P6SM` = 10+ SM in US METARs, `9999` = 10+ km in international). The decoder treats both consistently.
- 05 The RMK section is not decoded by the website tool. Some pilot-relevant fields live in remarks (peak gust, SLP, recent precipitation); for those, paste into the iOS app or read the raw text.
Download
On the App Store. iOS 18 and up.
In the iOS app, every watched station shows its current METAR decoded — same parser, with a scrubbable forecast meteogram and the per-runway crosswind table alongside.