ATC+National Weather Observer

haystack510 Junior Member Fremont, CA

To you FAA guys out there, are there any benefits of being a certified national weather observer as a air traffic controller? Or just means your the tower vis guy.

Stan Marsh Senior Member The Beach

No. If you're at a small tower that requires a weather observer, you'll be certified as one when you get to your tower. If you're at a major airport, you have NWS people that do the observations for you.

strykr Junior Member cardboard box

it also means you will have a very boring 4 days in Basics when they cover basic wx.

Stan Marsh Senior Member The Beach

Yep, 4 days in Basics AND a block of the tower initial training. If I remember right it's only 3/4 a day in tower initial.

P_to_the_R Ruler of the Movement Area funkytown

I had to get LAWRS certified at my wee little tower, but like it was previously stated, only smaller facilities with no weather nerds on station have to do it...lol We have an AWOS here, but need this cert in case it goes down or to augment if we see something the machine doesn't.

RC4524 Senior Member

Honestly, if you're talking about SKYWARN, it doesn't mean much. I don't know how it was for you, but I went through CLE about twelve years ago, and I learned more in my "teach yourself weather" books. Not saying that you didn't have a good class, just saying that they are VERY loosely regulated. So it may help you on a personal level just to be able to understand things, but I doubt the FAA would recognize it. If you went through a different cert program, disregard this comment. :-)

haystack510 Junior Member Fremont, CA

Yea I figured it wouldn't help much, I got a LAWRS cert that took me 3 times to pass the test. Hardest test by far compared to any ATC tests I had taken. Well thanks for the responses just curious since Im heading that way.

BWER Newcomer

Skywarn and a Certified NWS Observer are two totally different things. Skywarn is designed to teach joe blow to recognize a CB and call a 1800 number if he sees a tornado. A Certified NWS Observer is, normally, someone that augments an ASOS, Automated Surface Observation System. That includes verifying the data present in the ASOS and adding/subtracting as needed, can't say how many times I have had to take out stupid stuff like SN in the middle of summer. It also requires the observer to be proficient in backup procedures for recording and disseminating observations.

When I took the NWS test I had 4 years of military observing and forecasting experience and it was tougher than any military test I had taken to that point.

I work at a center so it really doesnt do much good for me outside of letting me work a 2nd job that pays good to sit and watch tv.

Cheers!

haystack510 Junior Member Fremont, CA

Yup it is a cake job if the ASOS is working, ours went out a couple days ago, and I had to input and send data through AISI I think, but didn't send it right. Within 20 minutes I was getting all these pop ups from people, and phone calls bitching at me. I didn't realize how good I had it with the ASOS until it took a crap.

BWER Newcomer

Where I worked at our procedure was to relay it to Flight Services for long line dissemination.

As bad as some folks talk about the ASOS it really is a good piece of equiptment. Air Force Weather has been working on fielding its own automated observing system over the past few years, OS-21 or FMQ-19. This thing has been and continues to be rittled with problems as basic as encoding CB with TS all the way to field sensors failing on a regular basis. Not to mention sending a SPECI every minute when there is any kind of weather..we are not allowed to lock out fields as I have done on the ASOS.

The list keeps going and going. Shows that even though the ASOS is an old system it is very mature and does its job well.