RTC – MOD-08 – Pt.04 – Significant Weather

“Significant Weather” is a term used to describe weather phenomena that are of note in the vicinity of the reporting station, a “phenomenon” may not be weather exactly, but smoke can be considered a reportable “phenomenon”. They are all given 2 letter codes.

Sometimes there will be a + or a – in front of the code to denote heavy or light variations of the “significant weather”

as they are (almost) all 2 letter codes, they can be joined together to describe the weather in more detail, for example:

“+SNGRFG”

would mean heavy snow, hail, and fog. Because there are no + before the GR and FG we can assume the hail and fog are moderate intensity.

Below is a list of the most commonly used ones (Bold ones are most common for DCS):

BC – Patches
BL – Blowing
BR – Mist (due to water droplets, visibility between 1 and 5 km)
DR – Low drifting
DS – Duststorm
DU – Widespread Dust
DZ – Drizzle
FC – Funnel Cloud
FG – Fog (visibility less than 1 km)
FU – Smoke
FZ – Freezing
GR – Hail
GS – Graupel, Snow Pellets and/or Small Hail
HZ – Haze (due to dry particulates, visibility between 1 and 5 km)
IC – Ice Crystals
MI – Shallow
PL – Ice Pellets
PO – Dust or Sand Whirls
PR – Partial
PY – Spray
RA – Rain
SA – Sand (Suspended)
SG – Snow Grains
SH – Showers
SN – Snow
SQ – Squall
SS – Sandstorm
TS – Thunderstorm (can also stand-alone)
UP – Unknown Precipitation
VA – Volcanic Ash