Snow where you live? not here

I had a tree branch blow out at 3AM and hit the roof. Woke my (donkey) up. :open_mouth:

The wind is dying down now.

METAR OEJN 211000Z 06020KT 2000 BLSA SKC 30/12 Q1016 BECMG 2500

For the non pilots out there, the key points are the wind is blowing 20 knots, visibility is 2000 meters in blowing sand, but it is clear and temperature is 30 Celsius.
Donā€™t think Iā€™ll take the motorcycle out today.

John

We can send you some of ours, we have plenty.

I am intrigued by this, as I never thought about the metric system being used in METARSā€¦ So all visibility reports are in meters and not KM?

Per onlineconversion.com/length_common.htm 2000 meters would be about 1.2 miles which coverts to just shy of 2 KM

Allen

2,000 meters is exactly 2 kilometers, unless you mean 1.2 miles is just shy of 2 kilometers.

echo do I hear?

I think his point was that it looked like you converted meters to miles and then to kilometers. That would be silly since 1 km is exactly, by definition, 1000 meters, hence the name KILOmeters. The conversion to miles is the only approximation (about 0.62 miles/km) .

Not exactly an echo, more of a clarification.

Unless I missed something in this exchange, of course.

This thread reminds me of the first time I saw BLDU in a METAR and then in Real Life :wink: BLSA (or BLDU for that matter) is not something in which Iā€™d want to fly a regularly equipped aircraft.

Tim

[quote=ā€œliebermaā€]

You said ā€œcoverts (sic) just shy of 2 KMā€ so I was wondering if you meant the 1.2 miles converts to just shy of 2 kilometers or if 2,000 meters converts to almost (ā€œjust shy ofā€) 2 kilometers.

This is why grammar is important.

Nah, I did that in the specific order purposely since people that may be like myself relate to miles vs the metric system.

I knew that 2000 meters equal 2 km, but for me, I need to related to to something I am familiar with, thus going in the order I did in my initial reply. After all, US METARS are in miles.

Iā€™d suspect around AZ area, BLDU / BLSA is a common event from what I have observed from a distance.

Like you said, for a little guy like myself, that environment would not be condusive of safe operations of a piston plane. Bad for the engine, and Iā€™d suspect the paint would get sand blasted off as well.

Allen

Where is my grammar wrong? If you read left to right, itā€™s grammatically correct.

Allen

Per onlineconversion.com/length_common.htm 2000 meters would be about 1.2 miles which coverts to just shy of 2 KM

The sentence is grammatically correct but could have been rearranged to better express the idea that 2,000 meters is about 1.2 miles and the 1.2 miles is just under 2 km.

Mathematical diagram of the sentence: 2,000 meters equals 1.2 miles equals just shy of 2 km. Therefore, 2,000 meters is just shy of 2 km.

Revised sentence: Per onlineconversion.com, 2,000 meters (2 kilometers) is about 1.2 miles.

Like I said, it was grammatically correct but it could be confusing. My last word on the subject.

I have a headache now. Or to put it another way, now I headache have.
Anyway, to answer Allens original question meters are used for short range visibilities. 0-9000, with 10km being the next one. When you get into the old Soviet Union they also use millimeters of mercury instead of millibars and they use meters per second for wind speed.

John
Wind is just about finished but itā€™s still pretty dusty out there.

Very interesting as with the US METARS, visibility is reported up to 10 miles (anything more is reported as ā€œvisibility greater then 10 milesā€ when I listen to ASOS / AWOS)

I take it then when itā€™s less then 10 km, that the visibility is reported in increments of 100ā€™s?

Allen

50 meters when really short range like with RVR reports. It goes to 1000 meters out around 4 or 5000, not sure where on that one.

John

In the ā€œfull schemeā€ of things, does it really matter? Probably not :smiley: as this is just my curious side of me coming out, thus me asking silly questions of this nature.

In the real world, heck, I have a terrible time judging distance on severe clear days, so whether the viz was 5 or 7 miles really doesnā€™t make that much difference in the full scheme of things.

I guess one wouldnā€™t need to know the viz down to the 100 meter range when viz is slightly restricted in light haze, fog or whatever falls/floats in the air we breath.

Allen