Aviation Weather

I'm not flying every day any more, but looking up meaningful and understandable weather reports re mains as illusive as ever. I am convinced that weather reporting formats remain a hazard to flight safety. The preflight is not so much the problem because there is time to interpret the code. Weather updates while flying, however, remains difficult. Interpreting the code that is understandable on the ground may be completely incomprehensible while flying into unexpected weather. With all the computer power we have today, what is the point of using abbreviated telegraph code in describing weather. It cannot be that much of a status stumble for the weatherman.

It seems as though the NWS has it's interns redo all the weather graphics every year. The result is the elimination of valuable charts in favor of less useful programs. Today NWS pretends that Alaska does not exist. Missing are the polar projections and North Pacific graphics that show you what is coming and why. To top off the distortion they use Mercator charts that loose all sense of proportion and direction in northern latitudes. Still missing is any reference to the cold weather effect on altimeters. Remember the Alaskan mantra, "the mountains grow taller in winter."