AvWeather

AvWeather is an Alexa skill for the check a pilot repeats every morning: is the field flyable today, and is it worth driving out for. You ask out loud while you are doing something else, and it answers — no phone, no screen, no stopping what you were doing.

Ask for the current conditions and it reads a decoded METAR. Ask for the forecast and it reads the TAF the same way, or ask for both together in a full check. It takes airports by identifier or by name, copes with NATO spelling and with identifiers that sound alike, and falls back to the nearest field with a forecast when yours publishes none.

It also answers the question behind the numbers. Ask whether you can fly VFR somewhere and it names the flight category and what is holding it there — ceiling or visibility — then, from the TAF, whether that is improving and when it is expected to lift. Raw METAR text is there on request for filing, and so is the arithmetic around it: density altitude, the crosswind component for each runway, sunrise, sunset, and the night-currency times, and a callout when temperature and dew point close up and fog becomes a risk.

Three phrases give the shape of it. “Alexa, ask aviation weather if I can fly VFR at KPAE.” “Alexa, ask aviation weather for a full check at KBFI.” “Alexa, ask aviation weather when it will go VFR.”

Set a home airport once and it stays set, so the daily check is a single sentence. That field and anything within 25 nautical miles of it are free, permanently and with no trial attached. Any other US airport is $0.99 a month, with the first 30 days free.