TAF Monitoring
Continuous Terminal Aerodrome Forecast tracking with instant change detection and visual diff comparison.
What is TAF Monitoring?
A Terminal Aerodrome Forecast (TAF) is a meteorological report that provides a predicted weather outlook for a specific airport, typically covering a 24 to 30-hour window. TAFs are issued by certified meteorologists at airport weather stations and are essential for pilots, dispatchers, and flight operations teams who need to plan departures, arrivals, and en-route segments with confidence.
AeroSentinel's TAF Monitoring feature continuously polls aviation weather sources for updated TAF reports at every airport in your watchlist. When a new TAF is issued or an existing TAF is amended (TAF AMD) or corrected (TAF COR), our system detects the change within seconds and immediately notifies you. This means you never miss a critical weather update at your monitored airports, on the ground preparing for departure or watching conditions from an operations center.
How Does It Work?
Our monitoring engine runs a persistent polling loop against official METAR/TAF data feeds. Each time a new TAF report arrives, it is parsed into structured data including wind direction and speed, visibility, cloud layers, temperature, dewpoint, and significant weather phenomena. The system then compares the new TAF against the previous version and generates a detailed diff that highlights exactly which parameters changed.
For example, if a TAF amendment updates the wind forecast from 180° at 12 knots to 240° at 25 knots with gusts to 35 knots, AeroSentinel will flag this as a significant change, display the before-and-after values, and classify the alert severity based on operational impact. You can review these changes in the Alert Dashboard or receive push notifications if you have browser notifications enabled.
Key Advantages
The primary advantage of continuous TAF monitoring is proactive decision-making. Instead of manually checking weather updates every 30 minutes, AeroSentinel works in the background and surfaces changes the moment they happen. This is particularly valuable during rapidly evolving weather situations such as approaching thunderstorm complexes, frontal passages, or fog formation events where conditions can deteriorate faster than the standard TAF update cycle.
Our system also maintains a complete history of TAF changes for each airport, allowing you to review how forecasts have evolved over time. This historical perspective is invaluable for understanding weather trends and improving forecast interpretation skills. A professional dispatcher managing dozens of flights and a general aviation pilot planning a cross-country trip both get the same benefit: AeroSentinel's TAF Monitoring keeps them informed and ahead of changing conditions.