METAR decoder
Paste a raw observation and get it back in plain language. Nothing to install, no account, no limit.
Paste a report above to see it decoded.
For flight simulation and virtual aviation only. Not for real-world flight planning.
What a METAR actually is
A METAR is a routine weather observation issued by an airport, normally once an hour and again whenever conditions change sharply. The format is fixed by ICAO, which is why the same string is readable at any airport in the world and why it can be decoded by software rather than interpreted. Every group appears in a set order: station, time, wind, visibility, runway visual range, present weather, cloud, temperature and dew point, pressure, and finally trend or national remarks. A TAF is the same vocabulary used for a forecast rather than an observation, covering a validity period instead of a single moment.
How to read it group by group
Take the example UUEE 011230Z 27008MPS 9999 BKN020 M02/M05 Q1013. UUEE is the ICAO code for the airport. 011230Z is the first day of the month at 12:30 UTC — always UTC, never local time. 27008MPS is wind from 270 degrees true at 8 metres per second; American reports use knots instead. 9999 means visibility of 10 km or more. BKN020 is broken cloud, five to seven oktas, with a base 2,000 ft above the airfield. M02/M05 is a temperature of minus two with a dew point of minus five, where M stands for minus. Q1013 is the QNH in hectopascals, which American reports write as A2992 in inches of mercury.
Why the small print matters in the sim
The gap between temperature and dew point tells you how close the air is to saturation, which is the difference between a clean approach and fog on the runway. Cloud base is given above airfield elevation, not above sea level, so it is not the same number as your altimeter reading on descent. Setting the wrong QNH puts you at the wrong altitude by roughly 30 ft per hectopascal. And CAVOK is not simply good weather: it is a specific combination of visibility, cloud and absent phenomena, which is why it replaces three groups at once.
What this page does and does not do
This decoder runs entirely in your browser. It parses the format and translates it — it does not fetch live weather, judge whether a flight is sensible, or replace a briefing. It also stops at the international format: national remarks after RMK differ by country and are shown as-is rather than guessed at.
Common questions
- Is the time local or UTC?
- Always UTC. The Z at the end of the time group stands for Zulu, which is UTC. A report reading 011230Z was issued on the first day of the month at 12:30 UTC, regardless of the airport's time zone.
- Is the cloud base above sea level?
- No. Cloud height in a METAR is given in feet above airfield elevation, in hundreds of feet. BKN020 means a broken layer 2,000 ft above the airport, so an airport at 5,000 ft elevation would put that layer at roughly 7,000 ft above sea level.
- Why do some reports use knots and others metres per second?
- Both are valid. Most of the world reports wind in knots (KT), while Russia, China and several other states use metres per second (MPS). The unit is always written after the digits, so the report says which one it means.
- What exactly does CAVOK mean?
- Ceiling And Visibility OK. It replaces the visibility, weather and cloud groups at once, and is only used when visibility is 10 km or more, there is no cloud below 5,000 ft or below the highest minimum sector altitude, no cumulonimbus or towering cumulus at any height, and no significant weather.
- Can this decode a TAF as well?
- Yes — a TAF uses the same vocabulary for a forecast rather than an observation, so the groups decode identically. Validity periods and change groups are shown as raw text.
Want this inside a conversation?
X-Shop AI reads live METAR and TAF for any airport, pulls your SimBrief flight plan, and answers follow-up questions about what the weather means for the approach you are about to fly.