Free METAR Widget for Your Website

Show the live METAR for your airfield on your flying club or flight school website: the latest report, its age, the flight category and a plain-English summary, with the TAF if you want it. Choose the airport, copy the code, paste it into your page.

How to add it: paste the code where your website accepts HTML: a Custom HTML block in WordPress, an Embed HTML element in Wix, a Code block in Squarespace, Embed then Embed code in Google Sites. The height suits most reports; if your airport's are long, raise height in the code. The widget updates itself every 10 minutes while it is on screen.

Who the widget is for

• Flying clubs: members see the weather at the home field on the club's own page before they drive out, without opening another app.
• Flight schools: students who are learning to read a METAR see the raw report next to its meaning, every day, with the full decoding one click away.
• Airfields and aero clubs: the weather at the aerodrome, or the nearest one that reports, on the page visiting pilots read first.
• Gliding, microlight and parachuting clubs, pilot blogs and aviation websites: anyone who wants the current weather for an aerodrome on a web page, free.

What the widget shows

• The station: the ICAO code and the aerodrome's name.
• The raw METAR, exactly as issued, and its observation time in UTC with its age ("23 min ago"). A report more than 90 minutes old is marked.
• The flight category: VFR, MVFR, IFR or LIFR, from the ceiling and the visibility, on the FAA and National Weather Service definitions.
• A short summary in plain English: wind, visibility and RVR, weather, cloud, temperature and dew point, QNH (or the altimeter setting in the US), and the trend where the aerodrome gives one.
• The TAF, if you choose it: one line for each period of the forecast (the base forecast, then each FM, BECMG, TEMPO and PROB group), each with its flight category.
• A link to the full decoding on the v1prep METAR and TAF decoder, group by group.

The light theme suits most websites; the dark theme suits dark pages and screens. The widget uses the visitor's own system font and loads nothing else: one small page and the decoder script, about 16 KB compressed.

Where the data comes from

The reports come from the Aviation Weather Center (aviationweather.gov) of the US National Weather Service, part of NOAA, which publishes the METARs and TAFs that weather services exchange worldwide, not only American ones. v1prep's server fetches each aerodrome at most once every 5 minutes, whoever asks, and passes the report on unchanged. The decoding is done in the visitor's browser by the same code as the METAR decoder, which is open source (MIT licence, on GitHub) and follows ICAO Annex 3, WMO-No. 306 and the FAA's key to the METAR and TAF.

Limits

• Not for flight planning. It is for a quick look and for learning; the widget says so on every view.
• Only aerodromes that issue a METAR. Many small airfields and farm strips have none; show the nearest aerodrome that reports, and say so on your page.
• 60 lookups a day for each visitor's connection. That covers a page left open for 10 hours at one update every 10 minutes. Several widgets on one page count separately. When the limit is reached the widget pauses until the next day and links to the decoder.
• The flight category is a guide. It applies the US definitions to reports from everywhere, converting metres to statute miles. National variations of the code exist that the decoder may not read; the raw report is always shown in full.
• A fixed height. An iframe cannot grow with its content: a long report or TAF scrolls inside the widget. Raise the height in the code if you need more room.

Privacy

The widget sets no cookies and runs no analytics, no advertising and nothing from other companies: no fonts, no scripts, no images from anywhere but v1prep.com. Your visitor's browser asks v1prep's server for the report. As with any web page, the visitor's IP address reaches v1prep's servers and their standard logs; v1prep uses it only to count lookups against the daily limit, and builds no profile of who saw the widget. As it stores nothing on the visitor's device, it needs no cookie consent; if your privacy policy lists the services your pages load, add v1prep.com for the widget. More in the privacy policy.

Frequently asked questions

Is the METAR widget free? Yes, for any website: flying clubs, flight schools, airfields, gliding and microlight clubs, pilot blogs. There is no account, no key and nothing to install. The text link under the widget is optional; keeping it helps other pilots find the decoder.

How do I add the METAR widget to WordPress, Wix or Squarespace? Paste the code into a block that accepts HTML: a Custom HTML block in WordPress, an Embed HTML element in Wix, a Code block in Squarespace, or Embed, then Embed code, in Google Sites. Any website that lets you add an iframe can show it.

How often does the widget update? It gets the latest report when the page opens, then every 10 minutes while it is on screen. Aerodromes issue a METAR every 30 or 60 minutes, and a SPECI in between when the weather changes significantly. The widget shows how old the report is and marks it when it is more than 90 minutes old.

Which airports does it work for? Any aerodrome whose METAR reaches the Aviation Weather Center (aviationweather.gov), which carries reports from aerodromes worldwide. Many small airfields and farm strips issue no METAR: show the nearest aerodrome that does, and say so on your page. You can check a code first on the v1prep METAR decoder.

Does the widget set cookies or track visitors? No. The widget sets no cookies and runs no analytics, no advertising and nothing from other companies. Your visitor's browser asks v1prep's server for the report; v1prep uses the visitor's IP address only to count lookups against the daily limit, and builds no profile of who saw the widget.