How to Read Winds Aloft Table - For Student Pilots

Go to aviationweather.gov/windtemp. Then, click on a region of the United States where you want to see wind and temperature aloft data.

Once you have your table of data you need to know how to read the massive square of letters and numbers. The first thing to know is the different times listed in the header. The based on time of winds aloft data tells you the time that the weather model was run in order to obtain this data. The valid time is what was input to the model as what time the model needs to get forecast data for. In other words, the model is run at the based on time and computes the forecast for the valid time. The final time is the for-use time. The for-use time is the range of time in which the data can be used. So as a pilot planning a cross country, you want the time of your flight to be within the for-use time range. The for-use time range is the same as what is selected in the timeframe drop-down box which a pilot can select the current timeframe or two-time frames forecasted in the future.

The top row of the data table is the altitudes that the winds aloft data is based on. The first column is the city or airport, abbreviated in 3 letters which lies below the wind and temperature data. So if you are looking for the winds and temperature to be expected when flying over Boston at 9000 feet you would find BOS in the first column and follow the BOS row to the 9000 ft column to find your wind and temperature data.

The wind and temperature data come in 3 formats in the table. The first format is just 4 digits. This format is seen only in the 3000 ft column. The 1st two digits are wind direction in 10s of degrees and the last two digits are the wind speed in knots. There is no temperature data for the 3000 ft column because it is close enough to ground that a temperature aloft is not reliable or much different than the ground temperature. The second format is 6 digits and a + or - sign after the 4th digit. This format is found in the 6000 ft through 24,000 ft. The first 4 digits wind direction and wind speed just as in the 3000 ft column. The + or - sign applies to the last two digits which are the temperature in degrees Celcius. The last format is just 6 digits with no + or - sign. This format is found in the columns for altitudes above 24,000 ft. The first 4 digits are still wind direction and wind speed and the last two digits are temperature in degrees Celcius which is assumed to be negative since at these high altitudes the temperature will always be below 0 degrees Celcius.

Another format to watch out for is when you see a 9900. This means that the winds are light and variable. Finally, there may be a case where you see the first 2 digits of a wind/temperature data block that are greater than 36. Since the first two digits are the wind direction it doesn't make sense that the wind direction would be above 36 or 360 degrees. The first two digits above 36 mean that the wind speed for this data block is above 100 knots. The reason they do this is that they want to keep the data to 6 digits to avoid confusion so in order to let the user know when a wind speed is over 100 knots is by making the wind direction over 36. In order to convert the wind direction to the correct value, subtract 50 from the first two digits and that is your wind direction value in 10s of degrees... so just add a 0 to the end to get the wind direction in degrees. Then, add 100 to the 3rd and 4th digits to get the wind speed.

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🛫 Timestamps:
00:00 How to Read Winds Aloft Table - For Student Pilots
01:00 Timeframe, Region
01:44 Data-based time, For use time, Valid time
03:16 Altitudes, Major city/area of forecast data, Assume negative temperatures
06:51 Few more formats
08:56 Let’s do some examples