METAR and TAF for XATE
Weather reports for Karas Air Base (Zhem) are published under the ICAO code XATE. 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 XATE 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 XATE, check the nearby airports listed below.
Reports always use UTC (the Z suffix). The Asia/Aqtobe zone stays at GMT+05:00 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 Shalkar Airport (UATR, 149 km), Aktobe International Airport (UATT, 179 km), Dombarovskiy Air Base (XWTD, 253 km). When no report is available for XATE, they usually give the best approximation of conditions in the area.
