METAR decoder

Paste any METAR or TAF and get every group explained in plain English. Works on reports from anywhere in the world.

What this decodes

The full ICAO core — station, time, wind including gusts and variable directions, visibility in statute miles or metres, runway visual range, weather phenomena, cloud layers, temperature and dewpoint, and pressure in inches of mercury, hectopascals or QFE. Plus TAF validity periods and the FM, BECMG, TEMPO and PROB change groups.

It also handles the remarks that most decoders skip: the US numeric groups (6-hour and 24-hour temperature extremes, pressure tendency, precipitation, snow depth, ice accretion), peak wind and lightning with direction, Canadian cloud-type and opacity remarks, ICAO runway state groups, sea state, and military colour states. Measured against 5,200 live reports from more than 200 countries, it decodes 99% of groups.

What it does not do is guess. A handful of remarks are free text with no standard behind them — BIRD HAZARD RWY 19/01 and similar — and those are shown as written rather than given an invented meaning.

Live: the hardest METARs to decode right now

Real reports being issued somewhere in the world at this moment, ranked by how much unusual coding they contain. Tap any group to decode it.

Learn the format

• How to read a METAR — field by field, with the traps
• How to read a TAF — change groups, and pulling out your arrival forecast
• VFR, MVFR, IFR and LIFR — the thresholds behind the colours
• Live weather extremes — every ranking, worldwide