METAR

METAR is a format for reporting weather information. A METAR weather report is predominantly used by pilots in fulfillment of a part of a pre-flight weather briefing, and by meteorologists, who use aggregated METAR information to assist in weather forecasting.

METARs typically come from airports or permanent weather observation stations. Reports are generated once an hour or half-hour, but if conditions change significantly, a report known as a special (SPECI) may be issued . Some METARs are encoded by automated airport weather stations located at airports, military bases, and other sites. Some locations still use augmented observations, which are recorded by digital sensors, encoded via software, and then reviewed by certified weather observers or forecasters prior to being transmitted. Observations may also be taken by trained observers or forecasters who manually observe and encode their observations prior to transmission

We published our METAR Wind Data Archive in April 2011

It is based on UK METAR data collected between 2000 and 2010