Meteorology
Atmosphere and weather systems
Meteorology questions cover the atmosphere's structure, pressure and temperature, stability, moisture, cloud formation, precipitation, visibility, wind, and the systems that produce them: fronts, lows, highs, thunderstorms and icing. You must read and interpret reports and forecasts, including their coded forms, and understand what each element tells you about the flight ahead.
Traps
Frequent traps include confusing indicated with true altitude in cold air, misreading a coded report, and assuming a forecast is a report. Another trap is treating stability as a single property rather than a gradient: a stable layer suppresses vertical motion, while an unstable one supports it. Questions may also test the difference between a hazard's presence and its likelihood.
Worked example
To assess icing risk, consider temperature and moisture together. Visible moisture near or below freezing, with a lifting mechanism, indicates a risk. The correct answer is to plan a route or altitude that avoids the zone, not merely to note the risk and continue.
Rule of thumb
Cold air makes pressure altimeters over-read, so true altitude is lower than indicated. Apply a cold-temperature correction on approach whenever the temperature is significantly below standard.