Why don't we get more user-friendly weather reports than METARs? This question is not about how to decode METARs or what software or tools can be used to decode METARs. It is about why we are still using METARs today.



Given that we have smartphones with video messaging capability, cloud services with machine learning today, I struggle to understand why we are still reading METARs:


It is difficult to read. Sure it is not hard to learn, but the fact that you have to learn it means it's not intuitive
It is designed at an age when text are transmitted by telegraph and every character counts
It is trivial to program a parser and render more friendly messages


For me I always feel that METARs are meant for machines; there has got to be something better for pilots which happens to be human. Instead of having this on my flight plan:


  KSFO 111456Z 16015KT 9SM RA FEW012 SCT030 OVC070...


Why not just:


  Station: KSFO
  
  Time: Mar 11 14:56 UTC
  
  Wind: 160 degrees, 15 knots
  
  Visibility: 9 statue miles
  
  Weather condition: rain
  
  Clouds: few at 1,200 feet; scattered at 3,000 feet; overcast at 7,000
  feet
  
  ...




The problem is not about decoding them. Most pilots can read them, and by the time a new pilot completes his PPL training he should have no trouble reading either. The point is everybody around the world is reading them, today, in the 21st century!

I don't know if I'm the only one, but processing the METAR string during flight prep takes a couple of instruction cycles away from my brain (and I have a tendency to check whether the software got it right if I happen to be using one, so I will be processing it anyway, which is a good habit I suppose). I am sure some of that brain power can be better spent somewhere else: reading section charts, route planning, picking an alternate, etc. Scaling this to the global scale? It means every pilot is paying more attention to other things, as opposed to reading coded weather strings which really is the job of a machine. The result? Better flight safely.

So, why haven't we began the move?
One use case where the compact METAR format is tough to beat is rapidly scanning meteorological trends. For that purpose, METARs are user friendly in the sense that they are expert friendly.

For example, a friend invited me to fly with him today on an Angel Flight mission that would have required a landing at Nashville. We had to scrub because the weather is unfavorable and not getting any better according to the TAF and ADDS METAR Data:

Data at: 1616 UTC 11 Mar 2016
KBNA 111553Z 36006KT 1SM R02L/4000V6000FT -DZ BR OVC005 14/12 A3024 RMK AO2 DZB51 SLP239 P0000 T01390122 $
KBNA 111541Z 35005KT 1SM BR OVC005 14/12 A3024 RMK AO2 SFC VIS 1 1/2 $
KBNA 111527Z 01006KT 2SM BR OVC005 14/12 A3022 RMK AO2 SFC VIS 2 1/2 $
KBNA 111453Z 02008KT 3SM BR OVC005 14/12 A3021 RMK AO2 SLP227 T01390122 53015 $
KBNA 111451Z 02007KT 3SM BR OVC005 14/12 A3021 RMK AO2 $
KBNA 111434Z 01007KT 2SM BR OVC004 14/12 A3020 RMK AO2 $
KBNA 111353Z 02007KT 5SM BR OVC004 14/12 A3019 RMK AO2 SLP219 T01390122 $

A subsecond scan confirms that the low overcast ceiling is stuck at four to five hundred feet AGL for the past several hours. Try outdoing that using the same information in decoded METAR format.