Where every number in a briefing comes from
FlightWeatherCheck consolidates official aviation and meteorological data. No proprietary weather models, no scraped forecasts — the same authoritative sources a Flight Service briefer or a careful pilot would consult, brought into one route-aware picture.
Product by product
| In your briefing | Source |
|---|---|
| METARs, TAFs, and PIREPs | NOAA Aviation Weather Center / National Weather Service |
| Winds and temperatures aloft | NOAA Aviation Weather Center forecast winds (FB) |
| G-AIRMETs, SIGMETs, and Convective SIGMETs | NOAA Aviation Weather Center |
| Area forecast discussions | National Weather Service forecast offices along the route |
| Surface prog, QPF, and convective forecast charts | NWS Weather Prediction Center and Aviation Weather Center |
| NEXRAD radar composite | NOAA NEXRAD via the Iowa Environmental Mesonet |
| TFRs | FAA (tfr.faa.gov) |
| Airports, airspace, and facility data | FAA NASR and Chart Supplement data |
| VFR sectional charts | FAA Aeronautical Information Services |
| Extended-range forecasts | Open-Meteo multi-model consensus |
| Wildfire smoke | NOAA HMS satellite smoke analysis and ECCC RAQDPS forecast |
| Terrain elevation | Public digital elevation data for the route corridor |
FlightWeatherCheck is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by NOAA, the NWS, the FAA, ForeFlight, or NAV CANADA.
Coverage
Route-aware analysis is supported across the United States, Canada, and Mexico. Some products are US-only — TFRs, G-AIRMETs, and CWAs do not exist for Canadian or Mexican airspace, and a briefing says so explicitly rather than treating their absence as clear conditions. Non-US routes are directed to the applicable national briefing services (NAV CANADA, SENEAM) for NOTAMs and airspace restrictions.
Freshness, honestly
Data is fetched when your briefing is generated, and the generation time is stamped on every report — observation times ride with every METAR and PIREP quoted, so the age of what you are reading is never hidden. A briefing generated well before departure tells you exactly what to re-check closer to your departure time. Conditions change: always verify with official sources before flight.
Related
How the data becomes an analysis: methodology. What the output looks like: sample briefings.