/AVWX-Engine

Aviation Weather parsing engine. METAR & TAF

Primary LanguagePythonMIT LicenseMIT

AVWX-Engine

PyPI version Code Health Requirements Status Documentation PyPI

Aviation Weather parsing engine. METAR & TAF

Install

The easiest way to get started is to download the library from pypi using pip

pip install avwx-engine

Basic Usage

Reports use ICAO idents when specifying the desired station. Exceptions are thrown if a potentially invalid ident is given.

>>> import avwx
>>> 
>>> metar = avwx.Metar('KJFK')
>>> metar.station_info['Name']
'John F Kennedy International Airport'
>>> metar.update()
True
>>> metar.data['Flight-Rules']
'IFR'

Note: This library is written in Python 3 with no plans of back-porting to Python 2.7

METAR

Meteorological Aerodrome Reports (METAR) contain current surface conditions at an airport or other reporting location that updates every hour or earlier.

avwx.Metar.__init__(station: str, lang: str=None)

  • Metar objects are initialized with the desired ICAO ident
  • Can optionally provide a language code for translations and summary to be in another supported locale

avwx.Metar.update(report: str=None) -> bool

  • Fetches the current report from NOAA ADDS and parses the result. Populates the data and translations attributes
  • Returns True if the fetched report has changed, else False
  • Will parse a supplied report if one is given

avwx.Metar.station_info -> dict

  • Basic information about the station including name, elevation, and coordinates
  • Available without needing to call .update()

avwx.Metar.data -> dict

  • The original report, raw parsed data, and unit values

avwx.Metar.translations -> dict

  • Translation strings for each primary attribute of the report

avwx.Metar.summary -> str

  • A summary string created from translations and designed to be read

avwx.Metar.speech -> str

  • A summary string created from translations and designed to be spoken by a text-to-speech program

Example Metar Usage

>>> import avwx
>>> 
>>> metar = avwx.Metar('KJFK')
>>> metar.station_info['Name']
'John F Kennedy International Airport'
>>> metar.update()
True
>>> metar.data['Flight-Rules']
'IFR'
>>> metar.data['Units']['Wind-Speed']
'kt'
>>> metar.translations['Wind']
'NNE-030 at 17kt gusting to 26kt'
>>> metar.summary
'Winds NNE-030 at 17kt gusting to 26kt, Vis 2sm, Temp 9C, Dew 8C, Alt 29.79inHg, Rain, Mist, Scattered clouds at 1000ft'
>>> metar.speech
'Winds zero three zero at 17kt gusting to 26kt. Visibility two miles. Temperature nine degrees Celsius. Dew point eight degrees Celsius. Altimeter two nine point seven nine. Rain. Mist. Scattered clouds at 700ft. Broken layer at 1000ft. Overcast layer at 2500ft'

TAF

Terminal Area Forecasts (TAF) are in-flight 24-hour forecasts for an area within 5nm of an airport or other reporting station that updates every six hours. Parsed reports are broken out into time periods.

avwx.TAF.__init__(station: str, lang: str=None)

  • TAF objects are initialized with the desired ICAO ident
  • Can optionally provide a language code for translations and summary to be in another supported locale

avwx.TAF.update(report: str=None) -> bool

  • Fetches the current report from NOAA ADDS and parses the result. Populates the data and translations attributes
  • Returns True if the fetched report has changed, else False
  • Will parse a supplied report if one is given

avwx.TAF.station_info -> dict

  • Basic information about the station including name, elevation, and coordinates
  • Available without needing to call .update()

avwx.TAF.data -> dict

  • The original report, raw parsed data, and unit values

avwx.TAF.translations -> dict

  • Translation strings for each forecast's primary attributes

avwx.TAF.summary -> [str]

  • A list of forecast summary strings created from translations and designed to be read

Example Taf Usage

>>> import avwx
>>> 
>>> taf = avwx.Taf('KJFK')
>>> taf.update()
True
>>> taf.data['Forecast'][0]['Raw-Line']
'1400/1506 02017G25KT 3SM -RA OVC008'
>>> taf.summary[0]
'Winds NNE-020 at 17kt gusting to 25kt, Vis 3sm, Light Rain, Overcast layer at 800ft'

Advanced Usuage

Developers can access the fetch and parse functionality directly using the functions below

avwx.metar.fetch(station: str) -> str

  • Returns the current METAR report from NOAA ADDS for a given station ident

avwx.metar.parse(station: str, txt: str) -> dict

  • Returns the parsed data for a given station ident and the raw METAR report

avwx.taf.fetch(station: str) -> str

  • Returns the current TAF report from NOAA ADDS for a given station ident

avwx.taf.parse(station: str, txt: str) -> dict

  • Returns the parsed data for a given station ident and the raw TAF report