Whois & Analysis for windy.com

METAR is a format for reporting weather information.

A METAR weather report is predominantly used by pilots in fulfillment of a part of a pre-flight weather briefing, and by meteorologists, who use aggregated METAR information to assist in weather forecasting.

Weather radar, also called weather surveillance radar (WSR) and Doppler weather radar, is a type of radar used to locate precipitation, calculate its motion, and estimate its type (rain, snow, hail etc).

Modern weather radars are mostly pulse-Doppler radars, capable of detecting the motion of rain droplets in addition to the intensity of the precipitation.

Both types of data can be analyzed to determine the structure of storms and their potential to cause severe weather.

A weather map displays various Meteorological features across a particular area at a particular point in time and has various symbols which all have specific meanings.

Such maps have been in use since the mid-19th century and are used for research and weather forecasting purposes.

Maps using isotherms show temperature gradients, which can help locate weather fronts.

Isotach maps, analyzing lines of equal wind speed, on a constant pressure surface of 300 mb or 250 mb show where the jet stream is located.

Use of constant pressure charts at the 700 and 500 hPa level can indicate tropical cyclone motion.

Two-dimensional streamlines based on wind speeds at various levels show areas of convergence and divergence in the wind field, which are helpful in determining the location of features within the wind pattern.

A popular type of surface weather map is the surface weather analysis, which plots isobars to depict areas of high pressure and low pressure.

Cloud codes are translated into symbols and plotted on these maps along with other meteorological data that are included in synoptic reports sent by professionally trained observers.

The European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, ECMWF, is an independent intergovernmental organisation supported by most of the nations of Europe and is based at Shinfield Park, Reading, United Kingdom.

SYNOP (surface synoptic observations) is a numerical code (called FM-12 by WMO) used for reporting weather observations made by manned and automated weather stations.

SYNOP reports are typically sent every six hours by Deutscher Wetterdienst on shortwave and low frequency using RTTY.

A report consists of groups of numbers (and slashes where data is not available) describing general weather information, such as the temperature, barometric pressure and visibility at a weather station.

It can be decoded by open-source software such as seaTTY, metaf2xml or Fldigi.