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3 Answers

METAR report

Asked by: 3649 views General Aviation

saw this in a METAR report this morning in the remarks section "RMK CF1SC1CI1".  Any idea what it means?

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3 Answers



  1. Ernest R Ortner III on Feb 19, 2013

    I’m guessing that is not from a US airport, what was the airport identifier if you don’t mind me asking. I believe that the letters correlate to the type of clouds observed and the following number would tell you the opacity of the clouds. So what it is telling you is that there are cumulus fractus covering 1/8, stratocumulus covering 1/8, and cirrus covering 1/8.

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  2. Bill Trussell on Feb 19, 2013

    OK so it took a while to find a somewhat definitive source for this information but Ernest is on the trail. See http://wxqa.com/archive/obsman.pdf Page 35 and table 9-1 of the document for the cloud type designations. The assumption of opacity in 1/8 increments is correct. The construction of the coding described on page 38 is outdated but the only difference is the type designation is given before the opacity figure in 1/8th increments. Also, each layer is given from lowest to highest.

    I found this mostly in Canadian observations and given that the data is in the remarks section it is intended for automatic consumption by weather models but it is useful for humans when you know how to read it. I will not be reading it by the way. It made my head hurt just looking for this information.

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  3. perlgerl on Feb 22, 2013

    Ernest is correct. I use Environment Canada’s Manual of Surface Weather Observations to decode METARs. It is consistent with the World Meteorological Organization, so should be good for decoding any METAR anywhere

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