Weather: Look to the sky

Nevertheless, you should overcome any reluctance to slough off obtaining a weather briefing, no matter how good the weather looks as you prepare to take off—especially if you’re planning to fly over the horizon.

Even if you’re planning to stay in your airport’s traffic pattern, or maybe fly a few miles to your local practice area, take a good look at the sky in all directions for any dark clouds or growing cumulus clouds that could become thunderstorms. You could go online and find the image from your area’s National Weather Service weather radar and see what the local atmosphere is up to. After all, a line of strong thunderstorms could lurk just over the horizon, heading your way—possibly sending strong wind gusts toward your airport.

Federal aviation regulations require that before any flight, you must “become familiar with all available information concerning that flight.” Even if you aren’t planning to leave the vicinity of your airport or fly under instrument flight rules, you should obtain information on, among other things, weather reports and forecasts.

The handiest way to obtain your weather briefing with this information is to call flight service at 1-800-WX-BRIEF, anywhere in the United States and Puerto Rico. You’ll talk with a specialist who’s trained to help you understand the weather information you’ll need for your flight.

You’ll be asked whether you want a standard, abbreviated, or outlook briefing. Most of the time, you’ll want a standard briefing. An abbreviated briefing is a short version of a standard briefing. You need to ask for one if you’ve already obtained a standard briefing, but you’ve been delayed in taking off. You tell the briefer when and how you obtained your standard briefing, and he or she will give you any needed updates.

You can call for an outlook briefing when you plan to take off six or more hours in the future. This is the best way to learn about any weather trends that could affect your flight. In some cases, it will help you decide that the flight isn’t in the cards for that day. If you do decide to go, you’ll need to obtain a standard briefing shortly before you plan to depart.

What’s in a standard briefing

1. Adverse conditions. The briefer checks for advisories of weather that is potentially hazardous to aircraft, such as extreme turbulence or icing, and dangers associated with thunderstorms.

2. VFR flight not recommended. If the briefer has any doubts the flight could not be made safely under visual flight rules conditions, he or she will offer this alert. This does not mean that you are prohibited from making the flight—but it should be an alert that you proceed only after getting more information about the expected weather, and giving it serious thought.

3. The synopsis is a general look at weather conditions using maps and text.

4. Current conditions are the latest reports of the observed weather at stations along the route, as well as pilot reports of weather they’ve encountered.

5. En route forecast. This is a summary of the weather forecast along your route.

6. The destination forecast is the forecast weather for the time around your expected time of arrival.

7. Forecast winds and temperatures aloft along your route. This will help you plan your flight, or update a flight plan you already filed, with the latest winds aloft forecast.

8. Notices to airmen. These are various kinds of notices, such as for runway closings and temporary flight restrictions.

9. ATC delays. Reports of any air traffic control delays that could affect your flight.

10. Other information. The briefer can give you information such as radio frequencies needed to open or close a flight plan.

You should overcome any reluctance to slough off obtaining a weather briefing, no matter how good the weather looks as you prepare to take off—especially if you’re planning to fly over the horizon.Practice, practice, practice. As with any aspect of flying, the best way to become skillful at obtaining weather briefings is to practice. Planning a dream flight and obtaining a weather briefing for it on the web is a good way to improve your skills when the weather or other circumstances don’t allow you to go flying.

To do this you could go to the standard briefing page on the National Weather Service’s Aviation Weather Center website. Here you will find links to text and graphic products with the information that Flight Service briefers use when you call for a standard briefing. It includes links to decoders for the codes used for various word products, such as forecasts for airports. This information is not intended as a substitute for a briefing from Flight Service, but it can help you learn to visualize weather and the resources available to you.