METAR vs TAF Explained for Drone Pilots

If you have been studying for the Part 107 exam you have run into both METARs and TAFs. They look similar, they both show up in weather briefings, and the exam tests both. The difference between them is actually pretty simple once someone spells it out.

The One-Sentence Version

A METAR tells you what the weather is right now. A TAF tells you what the weather is going to be over the next 24 to 30 hours. That is the whole difference.

METAR stands for Meteorological Aerodrome Report. TAF stands for Terminal Aerodrome Forecast. Both are generated at airports, both use similar coding formats, but one is an observation and one is a forecast.

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	METAR	TAF
What it is	Current weather observation	Weather forecast
How often issued	Every hour, sometimes more in rapidly changing conditions (SPECI)	Every 6 hours at most airports
Time coverage	Snapshot of conditions right now	24 to 30 hours ahead
Where to use it	Deciding if you can fly right now	Planning whether to fly later today or tomorrow
Accuracy	Highly accurate, it is a direct observation	Less certain, especially further out in the forecast period
Issued by	Automated sensors or human observers at the airport	Meteorologists at a National Weather Service forecast office

What They Look Like Side by Side

Here is a METAR and a TAF for the same airport so you can see the similarities and differences:

METAR:

TAF for the same airport:

The METAR shows you what is happening at 1552Z on the 14th. Winds from 230 at 12 knots, 10 miles visibility, scattered clouds at 3,500 feet, broken at 8,000 feet. Fine to fly right now.

The TAF covers from 1400Z on the 14th through 1200Z on the 15th. It starts with similar conditions, then forecasts a change at 1800Z when winds pick up, then shows a TEMPO window between 2000Z and 0000Z where there could be thunderstorms with rain, gusty winds, and reduced visibility. That TEMPO window is worth watching before committing to an evening flight.

When to Use Each One

Think of it this way. You are planning a commercial shoot for this afternoon. You check the TAF in the morning to see what the weather is forecast to do around your planned flight time. It looks acceptable. When you arrive on location an hour before the shoot, you pull up the METAR for the nearest airport to confirm what is actually happening right now. If the METAR matches what the TAF predicted, you are good. If conditions are worse than the forecast, you make a new call.

Neither one replaces the other. A TAF without a current METAR leaves you guessing what is actually happening. A METAR without a TAF tells you conditions are fine now but gives you nothing about what is coming.

The Format Is Almost the Same

Most of the codes in a METAR carry over directly to a TAF. Wind direction and speed, visibility, sky conditions, weather phenomena like TS or BR, and temperature all use the same notation. The key difference in a TAF is the change indicators that break the forecast into time periods:

Indicator	Meaning
FM (From)	A complete change in conditions starting at the specified time. Everything before it is replaced.
TEMPO	Temporary conditions expected to last less than one hour at a time and cover less than half the forecast period. Possible but not guaranteed.
BECMG	Conditions gradually becoming something else over the specified time window.
PROB30 / PROB40	30% or 40% probability that the following conditions will occur. Low probability but worth noting.

These change indicators only exist in TAFs. You will never see FM or TEMPO in a METAR because a METAR is a single point-in-time observation with no time windows to manage.

A METAR Can Become a SPECI

One more thing worth knowing. Standard METARs are issued every hour. But if conditions change significantly between scheduled observations, the station issues a SPECI, which stands for special observation. A SPECI uses the exact same format as a METAR but it signals that something changed fast enough to warrant an off-schedule report. Dropping visibility, a thunderstorm rolling in, or rapidly changing winds can all trigger one.

If you see SPECI instead of METAR at the start of a report, pay extra attention to the conditions. Something changed and it changed quickly.

Where to Find Real METARs and TAFs

The Aviation Weather Center has both METARs and TAFs for every reporting station in the US. Practicing on real ones is the best way to get comfortable reading them before the exam. Pick a few airports near you, pull up the current METAR and TAF, and work through decoding them field by field.

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