Vertiport Meteorological Report (VMR)

The VMR – Vertiport Meteorological Report is a METAR‑like, standardized weather report for vertiports. It is machine‑readable and designed to account for the fact that different vertiports operate with different sensor tiers. The VMR represents local, vertiport‑specific observational data and supplements METAR/TAF with precise vertiport information updated every 10 minutes starting on the hour (e.g 0600z).

VMR General Syntax

The VMR follows the similar METAR structure, and groups appear only if the respective sensor tier provides them.

// VMR<VPORT_ID> <DDHHMMZ> <AUTO> <WIND> [<VIS>] [<WX>] [<CLOUDS>] <T/Td> <CALC QNH> [RMK]

General Groups

• Product Name: VMR (Vertiport Meteorological Report)

• Vertiport Id: unique identifier for the Vertiport (e.g. VPBIC1)

• Date and Time

  DDHHMMZ 061150Z 06 Day of month /11 hour/ 50 minute/ Z Identifier for UTC

• Further Abbreviation (AUTO)

  Automated generated report

Wind Group

The structure of the wind group is the following: dddffGggKT

The group consists of three elements:

• ddd — Wind direction in degrees (000–360), indicating the direction from which the wind is blowing

• ff — Mean wind speed in knots (10 minutes)

• Ggg — Gust peak (gust), also in knots (Only published, when maximum wind value is exceeding the wind mean 10 minutes value by 5 knots)

• KT — Unit “knots”

Example: 26010G18KT

• 260 → Wind is coming from 260° (west‑southwest)

• 10 → Mean wind 10 kt

• G18 → Gust 18 kt

• KT → Unit Knots

Visibility Group

Not available for TIER 1

Horizontal visibility in meters

Value 9999 is shown if visbility is higher than 10 000m

Cloud Group

Not available for TIER 1 and TIER 2

Weather Codes

TIER 1: WXT530 (Vaisala)

Only Rain RA Weather code is available

Temperature and Dewpoint

03/02 03 Outside Air Temperature in °C /02 Dewpoint in °C

01/M02 01 Outside Air Temperature +1°C/M02 Dewpoint -2°C

The following formula was implemented for the calculation:

Calculated QNH

This section explains how the sea‑level pressure value is derived from station pressure and elevation

CALC Q1008 CALC Q Identifier for QNH in hPa

Q1008 → QNH =1008

The following formula was applied for the calculation of the QNH:

$QNH \approx \left(QFE^{a} + b \cdot H\right)^{1/a}$

$a = 0.1902614$

$b = 8.417168 \times 10^{-5}\ \frac{hPa^{a}}{m}$

Variables

• QFE – Pressure at vertiport level

• H – Vertiport elevation in meters

$QFE = P_{0} + 0.034164 \cdot \Delta H \cdot \left(\frac{P_{0}}{T}\right)$

Variables

• ΔH – Difference between the height of the barometer sensor [m] and the aerodrome reference elevation (Aerodrome Elevation) [m] (see AIP)

• P₀ – Measured air pressure at barometer height [hPa]

• T – Air temperature in Kelvin

  • T [K]=273.15+t [°C]

Remarks Group

The Remarks section provides additional technical information that does not fit into the standard METAR‑style groups. It uses a structured key‑value format to ensure the data remains machine‑readable and easy to parse.

The published messages for TIER 1 are:

NOT OFFICIAL

NO_VIS_SENSOR;

NO_CLOUDS_SENSOR;

NO_WX_Codes;

WX_Code_Rain_Only