Organize current official weather products, match their times and heights to the route, and keep wind and timing calculations in context.
Record departure, destination, alternatives, intended time window, altitude band and operation type. Use current authoritative briefing services, charts, notices and applicable training or operating requirements. This guide organizes supporting weather work; it does not determine legal minima, aircraft limitations or whether a flight should proceed.
Review observations, terminal forecasts, area forecasts and relevant advisories for the route and alternatives. Record issue and valid times, product age, altitude datum and coverage. A graphical layer at one altitude or valid time cannot represent the whole route. Check the product help when interpreting symbols or coverage gaps.
Distinguish reported cloud base and ceiling from a surface-parcel condensation estimate. Keep AGL and MSL references explicit. Review freezing levels, moisture, wind changes and relevant icing or turbulence products with qualified interpretation; a wet-bulb result or a 5% optical-range model is not an aircraft icing forecast or RVR.
Use compatible wind and direction references and retain variability, gusts and forecast uncertainty. Calculate headwind/crosswind components for a documented reference direction and corrected heading for a desired ground track. A nominal component result does not account for terrain turbulence or establish aircraft or pilot limits.
Use ground speed after wind correction for each route leg. Enter unequal-speed legs and explicit additional-time allowances rather than using an arithmetic average speed. Compare reasonable alternate wind/timing cases and bring the results into the actual fuel, performance and alternate planning required for the operation.
Refresh products before departure and at the points required by the actual operation. Resolve stale, missing or contradictory information through qualified briefing sources. Retain product times, route assumptions and the reasons for any change or deferral. After the operation, compare observations with the original planning case without overwriting it.
Inspect a surface-spread condensation-height example while retaining its approximate parcel basis.
Review supplied environmental levels and wind shear without inferring an operational hazard category.
Resolve signed components and the entered direction/speed sector. · Retain separate wind-sector cases when direction and speed uncertainty changes the briefing.
Solve the wind triangle and identify infeasible positive-progress track cases.
Calculate ground-distance leg times and explicit additional allowances.
Record compatible actual observations with times and quality notes.
Perform a later matched-case forecast review without treating it as flight clearance.
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AWC help explains product, time and altitude selection; observations, forecasts and advisories must retain their own context.
FAA describes a surface temperature/dew-point convergence estimate; it is an approximate parcel calculation rather than an observed ceiling.
Sounding and parcel diagnostics depend on actual data and method choices.
A saved weather image can be useful for debrief when its source, issue time and valid time remain visible.
The direction the aircraft points and the route it follows over the ground can differ in wind.