Decoding Cloud Code in METAR

Added: 2026-05-26

[00:00:00]When I made a video on METAR, a lot of you have asked one thing. How do we actually know if the sky is clear or cloudy? So, here's a simple trick. In METAR, the sky condition [music] tells you how much sky is covered with the cloud and it's written in the short [music] codes. The sky is divided into eight equal parts and [music] every part is called one octas. Number one, if entire sky [music] is clear, we call it SKC, sky clear. [music] If one or two part of the sky is covered, we call it few cloud, one to two by eight octas. Third is scattered. When cloud coverage is three octas or four octas, it is called [music] scattered cloud, which basically means cloud coverage is more than few. The fourth is broken. When cloud coverage increases from five octas to seven octas, it is called broken cloud. And the last, overcast. When your sky is completely covered by the cloud like this, that's eight by eight octas and it is written in the METAR as OVC. Once you start seeing it in this particular manner, METAR becomes much easier to understand.