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February 08, 2006
Pilot World-wide Weather in Google Earth
The National Center for Atmospheric Research's (NCAR) Research Applications Program (RAP) (a US Government program) has released a prototype for showing weather data used by pilots for use in Google Earth. The weather data, known to pilots as METARs, report weather conditions at airports including winds, atmospheric pressure, clouds, temperatures, and basic weather (rain, snow, fog, thunderstorms, etc.). The NCAR network link updates directly from the database which comes from Aviation Digital Data Service (ADDS) [this is the government, they have acronyms for everything]. This weather data is really for pilots, most non-pilots will find the data cryptic.
Once you download the NCAR weather network link 
you will see icons indicating current weather at over 3000 airports around the world. A legend is shown at the top of the screen showing what the icons mean. If you click on a particular airport, you get more details on the weather for that airport. The data in GE is automatically updated every 3 minutes. The ADDS data is used by pilots at their official site weather.aero which is quite useful to pilots (I've been using ADDS for years now). Also, you can check out the satellite or aerial photos in Google Earth for getting to know the airport before you land there. Here is the post by the NCAR specialist who is responsible for the application at the Google Earth Community.
This is actually a quite useful tool for pilots. I just made a trip from North Carolina to St. Louis and being able to quicly check conditions at nearby airports was good verification for the weather I get from normal official sources.
Posted by FrankTaylor at February 8, 2006 07:40 AM
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Posted by: liam green at February 9, 2006 12:09 PM
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