METAR code

Chris Rowland wrote in
:

Jay Honeck wrote:

I can't really get it.

Isn't it odd that in 2008, as Flight Service is consolidated and
modernized, that they are still transmitting weather information
encoded for teletype machines?

Sure, we all learn(ed) to parse it (with notable exceptions like this
one), but it's not like they lack bandwidth anymore.

Not everyone receiving weather data has a fast data connection. And
while one METAR may be small, getting the full set of METARs from
every station, worldwide, can get quite large, even with condensed
format. Storing that data for a while could be even more difficult
with an expanded format, that still contained the same basic data.
Having a (mostly) standardized format is useful for reading too, I can
quickly parse many METARs for a flight very quickly, much faster than
when the data is in plain English (or any language).



I can do it faster in Chinese.

Bertie