What does light blue mean for airport and how to identify metar info clearly to new pilots
Hey! If you’re asking about a blue text METAR it means the conditions are marginal VFR (MVFR) - visibility is between 3 to 5 miles and/or the ceiling is between 1,000 to 3,000 feet.
The colour codes for METARs in Infinite Flight are as follows:
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Green: VFR (Visual Flight Rules) - Visibility more than 5 miles and ceiling above 3,000 feet.
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Blue: MVFR (Marginal VFR) - Visibility between 3 to 5 miles and ceiling between 1,000 to 3,000 feet.
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Orange: IFR (Instrument Flight Rules) - Visibility between 1 to 3 miles, and ceiling between 500 to 1,000 feet.
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Red: LIFR (Low IFR) - Visibility below 1 mile and ceiling below 500 feet.
If you’re asking why the airport has a blue colour in general, the answer is that in Infinite Flight, controlled airports (airports with a control tower) are shown in blue, and uncontrolled airports (without a tower) are shown in pink.
Hope this helps!
About the METAR, this is a great topic to learn how to read a METAR quickly and easily. I suggest you give it a read-through.
I’ll also break down the current METAR you’re seeing in your screenshot. It’s orange, so that means it’s IFR, first of all.
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WSSS: This is the airport identifier, in this case, Singapore Changi.
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181800Z: The first two numbers refer to the day of the month (18) and next four numbers talk about the time in GMT (1800Z), that the METAR was issued.
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31003KT: This is wind information. It tells us that the wind is blowing from a general direction 310º (from the northwest) at 03 knots.
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250V350: Some more wind information, this isn’t always there in a METAR. It tells us that the wind is varying between 250º and 350º even though the general direction is 310º (as stated in the above point).
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4000: This is the visibility in metres - aka 4000 m. In North America, this value is given in statute miles, for example 3SM or 5SM. Other places of the world use metres.
The next bit contains information about the actual weather and cloud behaviour at the airport…
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TSRA : This is the METAR code for thunderstorms (TS) and rain (RA). It’s a stormy day at Singapore!
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FEW008: The nature and height of the lowest ceiling (cloud base) in hundreds of feet above the ground. In this case, the first layer of clouds are a few clouds at 800 feet above the ground.
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FEW015CB: The next layer of clouds. These are few clouds too, but their bases are 1500 feet above the ground. Also, they are CB - or cumulonimbus clouds, which cause rather severe turbulence and thunderstorms.
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SCT016TCU: There’s yet another layer of clouds above the previous ones! They’re scattered clouds this time (SCT) and their bases are 1600 feet above the ground. And they’re even scarier - they’re TCU, or ‘towering cumulus’ clouds, which are immensely huge and cause dangerous thunderstorms, and sometimes even hailstorms, along with lightning and violent turbulence.
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24/23: This gives us the temperature and dew point, in degrees Celsius. In this case, the temperature is 24ºC and the dew point is 23ºC.
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Q1011: This tells us the air pressure at sea level at that airport, at the time of the observation, also called the QNH. It’s what you would set your altimeter scale to, if you were flying in the real world. This is given in hectopascals (hPa). In this case it’s 1011 hPa. In North America, this value is given in inches of mercury (inHg), and is preceded by an A for ‘altimeter’ (for example, A2992 stands for ‘altimeter setting 29.92 inHg’).
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RESHRA: This tells us there have been recent (RE) showers (SH) of rain (RA), which were moderate to heavy.
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BECMG: The METAR code for ‘becoming.’ Becoming what though? Read on…
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FM1830 TL1900: This means ‘From 1830 GMT till 1900 GMT.’ The thunderstorms are becoming something else, between 1830 to 1900 GMT. What are they becoming? Read on…
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SHRA: There we are. They’re simply becoming rain showers. This kind of extremely detailed information is not seen very often in a METAR, and is given here because the weather has been so terrible that pilots might want to know a little bit about the trend. So apparently it’s becoming better, from stormy thundershowers to simply plain old rain showers.
Hope this helps you out! Practice reading METARs repeatedly at different airports, and you’ll soon be super quick at reading them :)
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Ok so what will it be for snow and for 4000 in meters is it always in meters in infinite flight or is it 3SM in infinite flight as well.
I know that blue have ATC and purple has no ATC towers asking the inner circle colour
The inner circle corresponds to the METAR colours. Green for VFR, blue for MVFR and red for low IFR.
The code for snow is SN. Depending on the type you could have light snow (-SN), moderate snow (SN), heavy snow (+SN), snow grains (SG), ice crystals (IC) etc.
In most countries it’s metres - but like I said, if you spawn into any North American airports you’ll find the visibility in miles.
Infinite Flight gets weather from real-world sources - so whatever METARs you see are real-world METARs.
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