From September 12, 2022:
KPHX 120353Z 17048G75KT 4SM TS BLDU SQ FEW028 SCT090 BKN110CB BKN160 31/19 A2987 RMK AO2 PK WND 18075/0353 WSHFT 0338 LTG DSNT SE AND SW CONS LTGCGIC SE-SW TS SE-SW MOV N BLDU FEW028 T03060194
Translation: At the Phoenix, Arizona, early in the morning in London (3:53 am GMT) on the 12th day of the month (i.e., evening on the 11th local time), wind was from the south (170 degrees) at 48 knots gusting to 75 knots. Visibility was 4 statute miles in a thunderstorm with blowing dust. There was a squall (SQ). Clouds will be the least of your problems, with just a few 2,800′ above the airport, some scattered clouds 9,000′ above the airport, and a broken layer of thunderstorm clouds 11,000′ up with one more broken layer 16,000′ above the airport. Temperature is a toasty 31C with a dewpoint of 19C. Altimeter setting is close to standard at 29.87 inches of mercury.
The Remarks (RMK) are tougher to parse. There was a wind shift at 3:38Z and now there is lightning distant SE and SW. CONS LTGCGIC SE-SW means “Continuous cloud-to-ground & in-cloud lightning to the southeast through south” (source). Finally, the thunderstorm is SE and SW, but moving north.
OT: WaPo, 09/23/22 – U.S. watchdog estimates $45.6 billion in pandemic unemployment fraud
” A federal watchdog on Thursday found that fraudsters may have stolen $45.6 billion from the nation’s unemployment insurance program during the pandemic, using the Social Security numbers of dead people and other tactics to deceive and bilk the U.S. government…
To siphon away funds, scammers allegedly filed billions of dollars in unemployment claims in multiple states simultaneously and relied on suspicious, hard-to-trace emails. In some cases, they used more than 205,000 Social Security numbers that belonged to dead people. Other suspected criminals obtained benefits using the identities of prisoners who were ineligible for aid…”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/09/22/unemployment-fraud-coroanvirus-pandemic/
That’s a wonderful translation, thank you. Do they still encode that in EBCDIC?
Hard coded argot
Verging on impossible
The brain freezes up
METARS and TAFs are still using the telegraph-era shorthand. As retarded as it could possibly be. I’m wondering how many of the weather-related accidents are, in fact, results of missing an impirtant piece of information among the alpabeth soup.