Terry: The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) establishes meteorological standards and codes. Individual countries can deviate from them internal to their own county. That's why the US FTs and obs codes differ from the WMO internal to the US.
The TAFs are prepared by the source country or met office for transmission and use worldwide. That's why the TAFs are standard. The METARs are coded observations are less important than the forecasts since forecasts are used to give what weather is to be expected when aircraft arrive at the destination which could be 1 - 24 hours later than the obs. The military uses the international standard METAR for obs for its own airfields etc. This provides worldwide compatibility for pilots and navigators and is a way to ensure that they are familiar with the international codes when they are outside the US. The military are much more highly trained than US pilots although some US airline pilots have been military or are military reservists. It's the FAA and domestic aviation who are the driving forces which require the incompatibilities. The military must live with these differences. Regards, Stan Doore ----- Original Message ----- From: Terry Simpson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: U.S. Metric Association <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Monday, December 16, 2002 3:25 PM Subject: [USMA:24045] Re: hPa > G. Stanley Doore wrote: > >The military operates worldwide and the TAF is standard worldwide. > METAR > >outside the US is metric. The US METAR is a compromise to satisfy the > FAA > >and US domestic aviation. > > > But there are: > Civil TAF > Civil METAR > Military TAF > Military METAR > > I don't understand why the military decided to make the military TAF > metric and not the military METAR. > > > Correspondence in the mailing list please rather than email. >
