Contents area
Aviation weather
As the legally appointed aviation weather service and certified provider of meteorological services, MeteoSwiss ensures air traffic safety for Switzerland.
As the legally appointed aviation weather service and certified provider of meteorological services, MeteoSwiss ensures air traffic safety for Switzerland.
MeteoSwiss provides aviation weather services in accordance with the international standards of the ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organization) and the WMO (World Meteorological Organization), as well as in consultation with and according to the specifications of the FOCA (Federal Office of Civil Aviation).
At MeteoSwiss, specialists work around the clock to provide the various users of the airspace over Switzerland with the meteorological information they need. These users include air traffic control, airport operators, airlines, pilots of airliners, motorised aircraft, helicopters, gliders and hang gliders, as well as balloonists.
In addition to developing aviation weather products, MeteoSwiss provides services such as phone-based aviation weather advice and self-briefing platforms (Meteo Briefing). MeteoSwiss informs its users of current activities and projects in its annual User Consultation and in more detail in the annual aviation weather report.
A small number of letters and symbols are used to present aviation weather information. Pilots learn to read and interpret these messages during their training. Nevertheless, in practice they often come across abbreviations that they are not familiar with or have forgotten. The annual brochure, Aviation Weather Information for Switzerland (German, French, Italian) is helpful in this regard. The brochure “Aviation Weather Information in Switzerland” can be ordered in print free of charge: Federal publications for private customers (German, French, Italian).
The annual aviation weather report provides an overview of the commercial services and the main activities and developments in the aviation weather division of MeteoSwiss. In addition to an overview of the most important projects in the field of aviation weather, the report presents the key figures from MeteoSwiss’s performance record. The report also includes a brief summary of the IT security report and an overview of the aviation weather cost allocations. The appendix contains MeteoSwiss’s latest organisation chart, along with its quality, safety & security and personnel policies.
Statistics on the climate at airports in Switzerland are compiled on a regular basis. The basis for this are the METAR reports generated every half hour. The ICAO recommendations on aeronautical climatological information (Convention on International Civil Aviation, Annex 3) were followed in the preparation of the data.
The climatological information is aimed at aviation users and is available in a web application for the following airports: Zurich, Geneva, Grenchen, Locarno, Lugano, Samedan, Sion, St. Gallen-Altenrhein.
The data for the other regional airports can also be created if required.
For access, please contact Key Account Management Aviation Weather (fwinfo@meteoswiss.ch).