Runways at FBMA
According to the infobox on the English Wikipedia, Matsieng Aerodrome (Rasesa) has 2 runways: 06/24 - 1,300 m long (4,265 ft), unpaved surface; 17/35 - 850 m long (2,789 ft), unpaved surface.
The longest of them is 06/24, at 1,300 m.
No OurAirports data is available for this airport, so the figures above come from Wikipedia - a community-edited source that can be out of date. The infobox also gives no runway width. Treat these numbers as indicative and check the current AIP before flying.
Runway headings and wind
The thresholds are oriented as follows: 06/24 on 60° and 240° magnetic, 17/35 on 170° and 350° magnetic. A threshold designator is its magnetic heading divided by ten (ICAO Annex 14), so the runway axis can be read straight off the numbers.
For the 06/24 axis, wind from the south-east (around 150°) or from the north-west (around 330°) blows perpendicular to the runway and produces the largest crosswind component. Wind from around 60° or 240° acts along the runway, as a headwind or a tailwind. The decoder on this page computes those components automatically from the current METAR.
METAR and TAF for FBMA
Weather reports for Matsieng Aerodrome (Rasesa) are published under the ICAO code FBMA. A METAR is an observation of current conditions, usually issued every 30 or 60 minutes; a TAF is a forecast for the airport area, typically covering 9 to 30 hours.
The decoder breaks the FBMA report down into its parts: wind direction and speed including gusts and variability, visibility (including CAVOK and directional minimum visibility), weather phenomena by WMO code, cloud layers with their bases, temperature and dew point, QNH pressure, and the resulting flight category - VFR, MVFR, IFR or LIFR - using FAA thresholds.
Not every airport issues its own reports; many smaller airfields have no weather station. If no current data is available for FBMA, check the nearby airports listed below.
Reports always use UTC (the Z suffix). The Africa/Gaborone zone stays at GMT+02:00 year-round, so converting to local time is always the same shift.
The closest airports in the database, measured in a straight line from the reference point, are Sir Seretse Khama International Airport (Gaborone) (FBSK, 28 km), Thebephatshwa Airport (FBPT, 77 km), Dwaalboom Airport (FADB, 90 km). When no report is available for FBMA, they usually give the best approximation of conditions in the area.
