METAR notation as a foreign language. Was: Iowa Aviation Weather...en Espanol

Recently, Jay Honeck posted:

However, it is useful to do so. Notwithstanding that GPRS has plenty
of bandwidth for 'text only' applications, a raw undecoded TAF for
even the filthiest weather forecast will fit on one screen on my
cell phone.

This is true. Once you've learned the lingo, "METAR" is a very handy
language to know. (I get it on Pilot MyCast, too...)

Unfortunately, IMHO it's just another stupid thing that needlessly
weeds out potential pilots. Newbies look at the gibberish on the
screen, are told they must learn to understand it, and find somewhere
else to spend their disposable income.

Perhaps you underestimate the amount of time and attention to such details
that you have spent in pursuit of your interest in flying? The information
is not incidental to flying, and I'm glad that regulations related flying
aren't taken as casually those for driving an auto. It weeds out a lot of
folks that really have no business in the air space.

I agree with the other point of view that METAR is a much more efficient
communication than native languages. Perhaps because of decades of
computer programming, I even find it to be a logical and (for the most
part) predictable language. You can guess the meaning of an abbreviation
and much of the time be right. However, the most compelling reason to
learn METAR is that native language translations that I've seen have
sometimes been incomplete (I use ADDS).

Neil