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_scienceWeatherDecodeMetar

Decode a METAR and return (almost) all weather informations "AS IT".

In the most cases, you could use _scienceWeatherDecodeMetarLight instead (easier).

Prototype :

fun [S I] [S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S]

• S : a METAR.


• I : a flag : FROM_NOAA if the metar comes from the NOAA server (see Notes below), otherwise nil.
  In this last case, the metar must not be truncated nor contain supplemental informations.

Return : [S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S] nil if error or :

• S : type of the message : METAR, TAFF, ... Can be nil.
• S : the icao station code, unique id of each airport / weather station
• S : the day of the observation (some stations don't send datas permanently
• S : the hour of the observation
• S : the minutes of the observation (usually 0 or 30)
• S : the wind direction (in degrees)
• S : the stabilized wind speed
• S : the wind gust
• S : the wind unit (KT -> knots, KMH -> kilometers per hour, MPH -> miles per hour)
• S : the wind direction varies from this value ... (in degrees)
• S : the wind direction varies to this value ... (in degrees)
• S : major visibility (in meters)
• S : current weather
• S : nebulosity in low level (altitude)
• S : nebulosity in medium level (altitude)
• S : nebulosity in high level (altitude)
• S : current temperature (in Celsius)
• S : current dewpoint (in Celsius)
• S : sea level presure (QNH), in hectoPascal
• S : recent weather

Some return values can be unavailables, depends on the meteorological situation.

See also :

_scienceWeatherMetarNew

_scienceWeatherDecodeMetarLight

Example :

A metar provided by the airport of Mount Hagen (Papua New Guinea)

fun main ()=
	_showconsole;
	_fooS 
		sprintf "type : %s\ncode station : %s\nday : %s\ntime : %s:%s\nwind direction : %s\nwind speed : %s\nwind gust : %s\nwind unit : %s\nvariation wind direction : %s - %s\nvisibility : %s\ncurrent weather : %s\nnebulosity : %s - %s - %s\ntemperature : %s\ndewpoint : %s\npresure : %s\nrecent weather : %s"
		_scienceWeatherDecodeMetar 
			"AYMH 190600Z 18008KT 9999 BKN035 23/16 Q1017" 
			nil;
	0;;

The console displays this :

type : 
code station : AYMH
day : 19
time : 06:00
wind direction : 180
wind speed : 08
wind gust : 
wind unit : KT
variation wind direction :  - 
visibility : 9999
current weather : 
nebulosity : BKN035 -  - 
temperature : 23
dewpoint : 16
presure : 1017
recent weather : 

Note :

The NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, an US department) provides METARs on its ftp server : ftp://tgftp.nws.noaa.gov/data/observations/metar/stations/ but you can use an other source. In this last case, don't use the flag FROM_NOAA.
To search an ICAO code (airports, stations, ...) you could search in http://weather.rap.ucar.edu/surface/stations.txt or use your favorite search web engine.