"Nathan Young" wrote in message
.. .
On Fri, 22 Apr 2005 19:55:22 GMT, Nathan Young
wrote:

It is not as trivial as it should be. METAR decoder software is
difficult to write because of the special weather statements that can
be included in a METAR entry (things like RVR, multiple precip types,
etc).

Simple parsers can grab winds, date, time, and cloud conditions. But
to be all-encompassing requires a bit more. I found a package (via
NOAA?) that would do METAR decodes, and it included approximately 30KB
of source code, which seemed like a lot for the extra bit of
functionality it provided.

My memory was hazy. I found the original link from which I grabbed
the source code.
http://www.nws.noaa.gov/oso/metardcd.shtml

The link is broken, but it lists the source code as 49k compressed or
413k uncompressed source code.

I did a quick search and came up with:
http://nws.noaa.gov/tg/software.html

This link works and the METAR source files are near the bottom of the page.
One link I found describes the source code as having some issues.
I'm of the opinion that there is a smaller better way.