Pilotised

Weather

Route Weather Brief

The written answer first, then the picture: what will bite you on this route today, where it sits along the track, and whether an hour either way is better. Every airfield is rated on the worst ceiling, visibility and wind its TAF forecasts around the time you would be there, the forecast crosswind is worked out on the best runway for that wind, every SIGMET near your track is drawn against your cruise level, and the wind aloft says what true airspeed your schedule demands.

ICAO code, or the first letters of a name

ICAO code, or the first letters of a name

Pick from the list to add one. Up to four.

Rate against

Below 1.5 km / 1,500 ft is red, at or above 3 km / 3,000 ft is green, and 15 kt is the crosswind you will accept. These are limits, not law. Set them to yours.

Green starts at 3 km, below the 5 km VMC requires in most airspace. These bands rate how hard the weather is, not whether the flight is legal: check the published category printed on each card for that.

What you will get

  • A written verdict that names the figure behind every claim, worst first.
  • The track, your hazard corridor and every SIGMET polygon, drawn.
  • Each airfield on the published flight categories, and separately against the limits you set above, hour by hour across the next day.
  • The forecast crosswind on the best runway for the wind at each field.
  • The wind along track, and the true airspeed your schedule demands.
Try one:

Two scales, and they do not mean the same thing

Each airfield carries a flight category and a verdict against your limits. The category is the published one, the same four bands aviationweather.gov uses for the TAFs this tool reads, so it means the same here as it does everywhere else:

  • VFR: more than 5 SM and a ceiling above 3000 ft
  • MVFR: 3 to 5 SM, or a ceiling of 1000 to 3000 ft
  • IFR: 1 to under 3 SM, or a ceiling of 500 to under 1000 ft
  • LIFR: under 1 SM, or a ceiling under 500 ft

The verdict beside it is yours. On the VFR profile an airfield is red below 2 km or a 1,500 ft ceiling, because 2 km is the visibility VMC requires almost everywhere a light aeroplane flies and a ceiling that low leaves no room for the vertical clearance from cloud. It is green only at 3 km and 3,000 ft, which is the VFR category itself, so a green card can never sit beside an MVFR label.

The IFR profile uses the defaults airline EFB software ships with: red below 550 m or 200 ft, green at 3 km and 1,000 ft. Those are not a licence privilege and they are not your minima. Set your own in the form and the whole brief re-rates against them, crosswind limit included.

How the worst case is found

Every forecast period overlapping a two-hour window around your time is read, TEMPO and PROB groups included, and the worst of them is taken. The question a brief answers is what could be there when you arrive, not what is most likely. The group that produced the answer is named on the card so you can judge it yourself.

The same window is then re-rated at every hour of the next day from the same forecasts, which is the strip under the map. It costs no extra request, so the shape of the day is there before you touch the slider, and it turns grey where the TAFs run out rather than guessing past them.

Wind is treated the same way: the strongest group in the window is taken, resolved against every published runway, and reported on the end that gives the most headwind, which is the one you would use. Runway numbers are magnetic and a written TAF wind is true, so the components are worked out in true and only the runway label is magnetic.

Hazards are measured to the edges of a SIGMET polygon rather than to its corners. A SIGMET can span a whole FIR, so a track running beside one is never near a corner, and measuring to corners would report no hazard at all.

What it is not

A planning and learning aid, not an operational briefing. No NOTAMs, no runway state, no company minima and no authority. A TAF is a forecast and it can be wrong; a missing TAF is shown as unknown and never quietly assumed good.

TAFs, SIGMETs and runway alignments come from NOAA’s Aviation Weather Center, and winds aloft from Open-Meteo’s pressure-level forecast. Always use an approved briefing source for operational decisions.