World-wide METAR data file is getting bigger over the years

[Hardy Heinlin]

In the past months I noticed that a downloaded METAR world file has now an average size of 2.2 MB. In the years from circa 2011 to 2015 it was around 1.5 MB.

It's an increase of 50% in a pretty short time frame. I don't know what exactly is now more comprehensive; perhaps there are more airports, or more weather stations, or the data text may be more complex due to more complex weather or due to more exact data being available, especially in the remarks sections, or a mix of all that ...


Regards,

|-|ardy

[cagarini]

I believe it's in good part due to the increasing number of stations. If you saved an old file and compare it to a recent one you'll probably be able to verify.

In the past year at least 3 new stations were created just in Portugal.

The code itself hasn't changed during the last 2 years, and previous changes were minimal.  Contrarily to TAF code, METAR / SPECI are a lot more "concise" :-)

Also, remarks are forbidden in most areas. In ICAO Met-G region, under which most of Europe is, remarks are considered a violation of rules.

I asked my colleagues for any additional info and will add any news here :-)

[tango4]

Well, for France, all I can say is we had a shitty (pardon my french...) weather during the last 6 months !
I guess I saw the word CAVOK for the first time yesterday...
I don't remember having to control that much with CB activity in the area... Well, this spring was kind of a refresher training course for me !

[Michael Benson]

The weather has been pretty rubbish, at Slough Intl we had 6000 deps with CTOTs due to wx last month, thats 2000 more than the worst month previously.

[Hardy Heinlin]

CTOT = Calculated Take-Off Time ?

[tango4]

CTOT = Calculated Take-Off Time ?

Yes. Basically the polite word for SLOT...

The weather has been pretty rubbish, at Slough Intl we had 6000 deps with CTOTs due to wx last month, thats 2000 more than the worst month previously.

Well, knowing other people were suffering is quite reassuring. 😁
And indeed I remember seeing frequently some delay on BAW309, AFR1980...
Hopefully, not that many CTOTs in CDG. Not that we are very good, we are just the lucky owners of a 4 runway airport