Weather resources provide very important information before and during a flight. It is especially helpful for the pilots to determine if the weather conditions are safe enough to fly during the specified flight time. If there is hazardous weather along the route, pilots can then figure out an alternate routing or cancel the flight all together. On this page, there will be information about where to find these resources for both Canada and the US, as well as how to interpret the information. 

Aviation Weather Web Site (AWWS)

The Aviation Weather Web Site (AWWS) Links to an external site.holds most of the weather information relevant to pilots in Canada. It contains important weather information such as METARs and TAFs, which give the current weather conditions at a specified airport and the future weather conditions for the airport, respectively. Also, it includes AIRMETs/SIGMETs, which give airman meteorological and significant meteorological information for a specified time. Lastly, the AWWS has crucial features such as PIREPs, a pilot report of actual weather from a pilot who is currently or has just flown in certain weather conditions, NOTAMs, which indicate a notice of essential information to pilots, and many weather radars/satellites for in Canada to help make their flight as safe as possible. 

Aviation Weather Center

In the United States, there is a very similar website that is used by pilots to get pertinent weather information for flying in all 50 states. The Aviation Weather Center is home to many of the same features as is available in the AWWS. It includes all of the above and more: such as a winds aloft forecast, turbulence, and prog charts. 

Above is a picture of a METAR (on the top line) and a TAF. On a METAR the first word is always the airport code, in this case, PHNL is Honolulu International Airport. Next is the time the METAR was issued, usually 55 minutes past the hour. Then the winds, in knots, the visibility in statute mile (SM), cloud observations, and elevations. The 29/17 is the temperature and dewpoint, respectively. After that is the altimeter and then everything to the right of RMK (remarks) are extra notes. Each airport has its own special notes that they include for every METAR.

Lastly, to get individual reports of an airport on specific airports for:

- SIGMET

- AIRMET
- NOTAM

- PIREP

then https://plan.navcanada.ca/wxrecall/ is the website to visit. All you have to do is put in the airport you want information for. Check the boxes for what type of information you want and click search.