Question METAR Download Interval

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Erdemes

New member
Hello,

How frequent does the ActiveSky download the METAR from NOAA? In most airports I fly METAR is issued at 20' and 50' with 30 minutes interval. When I'm using ActiveSky I get METARs 15-20 minutes later than the NOAA. Is there any way to increase the frequency of the downloading the new METARs. Download interval is already set lowest possible option as 5 minutes in the options however it is not enough or it's not working.

Thanks
 
V

vadriver

Member
All my airports record metars to NOAA every 30 mins (but not con-currently even in the same FIR) and sometimes of moderate / severe changes more frequently.

Hence I have always set the download interval to 5mins to see weather updates as soon as available from NOAA on the understanding AS's server has made a soon & timely read of any updated NOAA data.

As mentioned by the OP, this does not seem the case and/or is not without a glitch or 2 somewhere. As much as there are lags of many minutes, sometimes there are missing updates & would you believe early ones ( & which on occasion are thereafter corrected) :unsure:

I hope AS can offer their thoughts / advice on this. The inconsistencies I see make it "difficult" to understand what depiction will be seen on arrivals particularly (wind, vis etc.)

If you wish, I can offer some logs of metar reads by ATC for your consideration.
 
V

vadriver

Member
Erdemes said:
Is there any way to increase the frequency of the downloading the new METARs.
Click to expand...
I have been in contact with support about "aspects" of metar download frequency etc.

Essentially as I now understand, metar downloads are more frequent (can be several per hour depending on the station reporting) in Live Weather but only one is recorded with Historic (the latest from the previous set (top of the) hour it seems though "time stamped" the start of that hour).

I have thus observed that with an AS 5min download, most Live metars are less than 10 mins "late". With Historic, many are thus early, some timely, some late.

So, I see no need for an increased frequency for Live ..... but wish Live metars could be recorded & directly stored to Historic (as I thought was done in earlier AS versions) for the same comprehensive cover.

Trust I am correct in my above & it helps.
 
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pertman

Member
Anybody know if AS uses weather data other than METARs and "Live Sigmets and Airmets for the CONUS"? For instance, how does it obtain winds aloft and temperature data?
 
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vadriver

Member
@pertman

AS does use winds & temperature data aloft ....... as can be seen in its flight planning features & in data listed in one's current_wx_snapshot file.

I suspect it is read from the likes of AWC data / graphics (WAFS) & is "forecast" winds over time as it changes (can't see how else).

Others may know better however.
 
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