METAR Decoder
Live METAR from an authoritative source (NOAA AWC) decoded element by element with wind, visibility, cloud, temperature and altimeter visuals, observation time and freshness; never silently substituted.
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Enter an airport identifier (for example KJFK, PANC or EGLL) and press Get METAR: the latest report comes from the NOAA / National Weather Service Aviation Weather Center through this site's server. The readout header always says what you are looking at — LIVE, a CACHED COPY (an older stored report, when the Aviation Weather Center could not be reached), HISTORICAL (Earlier reports: the station's last six hours), PASTED (your own text) or SIMULATED (a training example) — with the source, the observation time, when it was retrieved and how old it is.
Read the report three ways: the raw text, the summary (wind, visibility and runway visual range, weather, sky and ceiling, temperature and dew point, altimeter, flight category) and the element-by-element list, where every group of the report — remarks included — has its meaning and the paragraph of the FAA publication it comes from. A group the decoder cannot match to a documented meaning is marked NOT DECODED and shown as written: it never guesses.
The drawing shows the wind blowing FROM its direction (true north up, the variable sector shaded, gusts as a wider arrow, the peak wind of the remarks as a coral mark), the cloud layers by amount at their heights with the ceiling in amber, the visibility along the ground and the flight category. Practice asks five questions on a training example or on the report on screen and scores them; the readout hides the answers until you choose.
Assumption and limits: educational use only — not for flight planning; before flight use an official weather briefing. Live reports come from the Aviation Weather Center through this site's server, which keeps a copy for 90 seconds (METAR) to stay within the provider's limits; if the Aviation Weather Center cannot be reached, a stored copy up to three hours old is shown and labelled CACHED COPY, never as live, and older copies are not shown at all. Training examples are the FAA publications' own example reports or constructed reports (identifiers beginning with X) and are never current. Flight category colours (VFR green, MVFR cyan, IFR coral, LIFR purple) and the 75-minute freshness note are platform conventions. International reports are decoded with the WMO code (WMO-No. 782 and WMO-No. 306), including trend groups such as NOSIG, BECMG and TEMPO; national remarks are decoded only where the decoder knows their form and are labelled so.
Decoding follows the U.S. METAR / SPECI code of the FAA Aviation Weather Handbook FAA-H-8083-28B (2026), section 24.4: report type, station, date and time, AUTO / COR, wind (direction true, speed, gusts, VRB, variable direction, calm), visibility in statute miles (fractions, M less than), runway visual range (variable, M / P), present weather (intensity or vicinity, one descriptor, up to three precipitation types, obscurations, other phenomena; Table 24-3), sky condition (FEW / SCT / BKN / OVC, CB / TCU, vertical visibility, CLR and SKC), temperature and dew point (M for minus), altimeter and the remarks of Table 24-6. Remark and additive groups the handbook lists without detail are decoded from FAA Order JO 7900.5E with Change 1, chapter 13 (peak wind, wind shift, tower and sector visibility, lightning, beginning and ending times, hail, virga, variable ceiling, obscurations, variable sky, significant clouds, pressure rising or falling rapidly, sea-level pressure, snow increasing rapidly, hourly and 3- / 6- / 24-hour precipitation, ice accretion, snow depth and water equivalent, tenths of temperature, maximum and minimum temperatures, the 3-hour pressure tendency with Table 13-9, sensor status and the maintenance indicator). International forms follow AIM 7-1-28 and 7-1-29.
Ceiling: the lowest layer aloft reported broken or overcast, or the vertical visibility into a surface-based obscuration (AWH 24.4.3.9); a surface-based partial obscuration such as BKN000 is not a ceiling. Flight category (AIM 7-1-7): LIFR ceiling below 500 ft and/or visibility below 1 mile; IFR 500 to below 1,000 ft and/or 1 to below 3 miles; MVFR 1,000 to 3,000 ft and/or 3 to 5 miles; VFR above 3,000 ft and above 5 miles — the worse of the two. Sea-level pressure: the hundreds digits are not coded and must be inferred (AWH 24.4.3.13.22); the value nearer the altimeter setting is shown. Minutes-only remark times are in the hour of the observation (JO 7900.5E 13.17).
Live data: the Aviation Weather Center Data API (aviationweather.gov/data/api), read through this site's server, which allows only these requests, keeps short copies (METAR 90 s, earlier reports 2 minutes, station list one day) and limits requests per visitor and for the whole site well below the provider's 100 requests a minute. The decoder was checked against the Aviation Weather Center's own decoding of real reports (wind, visibility, altimeter, temperatures, sea-level pressure, cloud layers and flight category agreed in every case).
- FAA-H-8083-28B Aviation Weather Handbook (2026), 24.4 Aviation Routine Weather Report (METAR) and Aviation Selected Special Weather Report (SPECI): 24.4.1-24.4.3.14 (format, station, date and time, AUTO / COR, wind, visibility, runway visual range, present weather with Table 24-3, sky condition with Tables 24-4 and 24-5, temperature and dew point, altimeter, remarks with Table 24-6, additive and maintenance data), Table 24-1 (a decoded example)
- FAA Order JO 7900.5E, Surface Weather Observing, with Change 1 (7/1/2021), chapter 13 Coding: 13.9-13.16 (report modifiers, wind, visibility with Table 13-3, runway visual range) and 13.17-13.58 (remarks; precipitation, ice accretion, snow, temperature and pressure-tendency groups with Table 13-9; sensor status indicators and the maintenance indicator)
- Aeronautical Information Manual (effective 9 July 2026) 7-1-7 (categorical ceiling and visibility conditions: LIFR, IFR, MVFR, VFR), 7-1-28 (key to the TAF and METAR), 7-1-29 (ICAO weather formats: international forms and decoded examples)
- NOAA / National Weather Service Aviation Weather Center Data API (aviationweather.gov/data/api, read 2026-10-16): current METARs and station information; 100 requests per minute, a custom user agent requested, no cross-origin access; NWS information is in the public domain (weather.gov disclaimer)
- Model choices of this tool (stated on the page): flight category colours, the 75-minute freshness note, the sea-level pressure hundreds taken nearer the altimeter setting, practice questions and scoring, training examples from the FAA publications or constructed (identifiers beginning with X)