I just did a quick flight from KBOS to KORH about 40nm away. At BOS I was given ‘Echo’ but at ORH I was given ‘Whiskey’. I’m not a real life pilot but I was under the impression that METARs were generally updated every hour and so I would have thought that they would have information Echo during the same zulu hour (if thats the way you say that) especially being so close to one another. Is it common for airports to be using completely different letters to denote the same information cycle?
Airports near one another with ATIS broadcasts usually don’t have the same letter. One airport might be broadcasting information Tango and a nearby airport might be information Whiskey. ATIS reports have letters attached to let the controller know the pilot has the most up to date ATIS. METARs are different from ATIS reports and generally update by the minute automatically and do not have a letter attached to the report.
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The information (Echo, Whiskey…) is to sort out ATIS information. In an ATIS, there a lot of info like the weather condition (which could be more than just the METAR), the runway in use, any approach/departure in place or any specification conditions… Each airport can update their info/ATIS whenever they want so there’s not at all any synchronisation between ATIS information (letter).
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OK, thank you both for the quick replies but now Im even more confused. I thought ATIS broadcast the most recent METAR? and all of it normally only updated on the hour? (except in severe weather). So METARs and ATIS are only somewhat connected then? and METARs are more up to date than I always thought?
METARs are used by both NOAA weather for weather forecasting and Aviation to determine the status (IFR, marginal IFR, VFR, marginal VFR) of an airport. ATIS contains weather information for an airport and any issues pilots should know (for example runway closed, birds in vicinity of airport, etc.) As mentioned, ATIS has a letter designating for currency. METER currency is identified by the airport and the time issued. In addition, the ATC tower has dynamic weather such as wind direction and pressure.
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METAR can be automatically generated by a station, generally every hours but METAR can also be created or amended by a weather specialist. It’s not uncommon to have METAR updated at half-past (xxH30) if needed, due to weather change (no necessarily “severe”) and because someone is capable to update it. Sometime a METAR can also give a short forecast.
Yes and No. An ATIS is made of data weather information but not only. So an ATIS can be updated independantly from a METAR.
By the way, your original question was linked to the ATIS Letter. You can image a scenario were two station providing an ATIS don’t start at the same time, not too mention that one can be 24/7 and the other day only.
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Thanks very much for all the information. I had an overly simplistic view of things it seems.
Lets say both airports issue their first ATIS of the day, ATIS Alpha at 0700, but the weather or runway condition or navaids change at airport 1 30 minutes after ATIS Alpha. They would issue ATIS Bravo to reflect the changed condition at 0730. They would issue ATIS Charlie at 0800 to reflect the latest observation taken at that time. METARs happen once an hour usually unless weather is changing rapidly.
Meanwhile over at Airport 2 nothing changed until the next hour. Another weather observation would be made and ATIS Bravo would be issued at 0800.
The phonetic just confirms to the controller you have the latest ATIS at that airport.