Jargon for Aviation Weather

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• aerodrome = a place where aircraft take off and land.  Includes airports on land, and "water aerodromes" on water bodies.
  
• AIM = Aeronautical Information Manual
  
• AGL = Above ground level (use when reporting heights or altitudes)
• ASL = Above sea level (use when reporting heights or altitudes)
• attitude = the orientation of the aircraft relative to the flight direction.  E.g., nose pitched up or down; wings rolled left or right;  tail yawed left or right.
  
• CAVOK = Ceiling and Visibility are OK.  (i.e., good for VFR flight).
  
• CDT = Central Daylight Time (= UTC - 5 hours)
• Commercial pilot = a type of pilot's license that allows you to be paid for flying activities, including carrying passengers, cargo, etc.
  
• Convection / Convective / Cumuliform Clouds = vertical clouds with up & downdrafts 
  
• EC = Environment Canada 
  
• ENE = East North East
• FAA = Federal Aviation Administration (USA)
• ft = feet.  A distance measure used for altitude.  ( 1,000 ft = 304.8 m)
  
• knot = a unit of speed: a nautical mile per hour  (100 knots = 185 km/hour = 115 mph = 51 m/s)
• ICAO = International Civil Aviation Organization (part of the United Nations)
  
• IFR = Instrument Flight Rules  
• IMC = Instrument Meteorological Conditions (i.e., weather in which your are not allowed to fly by looking out your windscreen)
• lose control of the aircraft = causing the aircraft to have an attitude that causes one or both wings to lose aerodynamic lift (not enough air flowing over the wing).The wing(s) then start to fall due to gravity.  In this situation, some of the pilot's normal controls do not work, making it difficulty for the pilot to change the aircraft attitude to bring it back to normal controlled flight.
  
• Maneuvering Speed = safe speed for an aircraft to fly within violently turbulent air.
• METAR = aerodrome routine meteorological report
  
• MSL = above Mean Sea Level
• MVFR =  Marginal Visual Flight Rules   
• NWS = US National Weather Service
  
• Private Pilot = a type of pilot's license that allows you to fly almost anywhere, but you cannot be paid or compensated.
• spin = a type of stall resulting in autorotation about a vertical axis, and a shallow, rotating, downward path.  Like a corkscrew.
  
• stall = different things for a car vs. aircraft.  In a car, a stall is when the engine stops unexpectedly.  In an aircraft, the wings stall when they lose aerodynamic lift, such as when the aircraft is going too slowly.  An aircraft stall can (and often does) happen while the engine is running.  When the aircraft stalls, it starts to fall out of the sky.  However, pilots are trained to recover from stalls, and to avoid flying the aircraft in a way that creates a stall.  
• TAF = Aerodrome Forecast = weather forecast at airports
  
• TC = Transport Canada
  
• USA = United States of America
• UTC = Coordinated Universal Time  = Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) = Zulu time (Z)
• VFR = Visual Flight Rules  
• VFR over the top = flying in clear air above the top of a cloud layer.  
• VMC = Visual Meteorological Conditions  (i.e., weather good enough to fly by looking out your windscreen)
  
• virga = precipitation that completely evaporates before reaching the ground. 
• WMO = World Meteorological Organization (part of the United Nations) 
  
• yoke = control yoke = aircraft steering wheel.  Used to bank the plane left or right, and to pitch the nose up or down.
  
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