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About PlaneWX
Release Notes

What's New in PlaneWX

Recent feature releases, improvements, and bug fixes — newest first.

Regional Watch

Pin Your Preferred Region for Regional Watch

Regional Watch now follows you, not just your home airport. You can pin any of the 23 US aviation regions directly from the dashboard — no trip to Settings required. International pilots get the nearest US region loaded automatically, and anyone can hide the card entirely if US weather isn't relevant to their flying.

New — Inline Region Switcher

  • Tap the compact region badge (e.g. 'Up. MW ↓') on any Regional Watch card to instantly swap regions
  • Your selection saves automatically to your profile — no Save button needed
  • Smart suggestions group options as Auto (current), Nearby (adjacent regions), and All Regions
  • A 'Not your area? Change region' nudge appears when the region was auto-detected, making the option easy to discover

New — International Airport Support

  • Pilots based outside the US now see Regional Watch automatically — PlaneWX resolves the nearest US aviation region by geography
  • The same smart-suggestion picker shows 'Nearest' + adjacent regions so cross-border pilots find their area quickly
  • If no region can be resolved, a manual picker appears instead of an infinite loading state

New — Hide Regional Watch

  • Click the small × next to the 'Regional Watch' label to dismiss the card from your dashboard
  • The morning digest regional section is also suppressed — you still receive METAR, TAF, and upcoming trip data
  • Restore it any time from Profile → Preferences → Regional Watch → Show again

Also

  • Preferred region preference is honored in morning digest emails — the regional synopsis reflects your saved region, not just your home airport's auto-detected one
  • Profile → Preferences → Forecast Region offers the same smart picker for users who prefer managing settings in one place
Learn more:Regional Watch guide →
Visual Mode

Visual Mode — Live Forecast Imagery in Every Section

Visual mode is a new fourth briefing view that embeds official NOAA/AWC forecast charts and an interactive Windy ECMWF winds-aloft map directly inside each section of your briefing. Every chart is automatically matched to your departure window and cruise altitude — so you see the 18Z turbulence chart for your Wednesday evening departure, not the current-conditions map.

New — Section-by-Section Forecast Imagery

  • The Pattern: WPC Prog Chart (cycle-anchored to your departure window) + WPC Surface Analysis
  • Ceilings: AWC Aviation Clouds Forecast (GFA) + G-AIRMET Sierra
  • Convective: SPC Day 1/2/3 Categorical Outlook — automatically selected by days-until-departure
  • Turbulence: GTG Total turbulence at your cruise altitude + G-AIRMET Tango-H and Tango-L
  • Icing: FIP forecast icing probability at your cruise altitude (CIP for departures within 1 hour)
  • AIRMETs: G-AIRMET Sierra chart time-stepped to your window
  • Multiple charts per section use carousel arrows — swipe left/right to flip through slides

New — Interactive Windy Winds-Aloft Map

  • Embedded Windy ECMWF interactive map in the Winds Aloft section, centered on your route
  • Altitude selector pills show your cruise level plus the two adjacent pressure levels for easy comparison
  • Drag to pan, scroll to zoom — use the Windy timeline bar to step to your departure window

New — Smart Time & Altitude Matching

  • Charts are selected by anchoring to the WPC/AWC model cycle init time and picking the forecast hour closest to your departure — not just 'hours from now'
  • Icing and turbulence charts are snapped to the nearest available pressure level for your cruise altitude
  • Chart labels show the exact valid time (e.g., 'Wed 18Z · F30') so you always know what you're looking at
  • Imagery freshness gate: if a briefing is more than 6 hours old, imagery is suppressed with a stale notice — tap Refresh to re-enable
  • Forecast horizon notices when products aren't yet available for your window (e.g., GTG within 18h, G-AIRMET within 12h)
Learn more:Visual Mode Guide →
NOTAMs

NOTAM Integration — Filtered, Prioritized, and Scored

Your briefing now includes relevant NOTAMs for departure and arrival airports, filtered by time, sorted by priority, and wired directly into your WX Score. Airport closures and TFRs that close an airport are hard NO-GOs. Approach outages and runway contamination carry score penalties. A wall of 100+ raw NOTAMs is replaced by the handful that actually matter for your flight.

New — Smart NOTAM Filtering

  • NOTAMs filtered to only those active during your flight window — with a ±4-hour safety buffer for critical items
  • Cancelled NOTAMs (type C) hidden entirely — they're not a factor and shouldn't add noise
  • Three priority tiers: Operational (Tier 1, always expanded), Awareness (Tier 2), and Lower Priority (Tier 3, collapsed by default)
  • Procedure NOTAMs (approach amendments) grouped by runway direction — expand just the runway family you'll use
  • All TFRs except airport-closing ones shown as a single reference line with link to tfr.faa.gov — no more walls of TFR text
  • NOTAM count in the card header breaks down as total · operational · awareness so you know exactly what you're looking at

New — NOTAM-Driven Scoring

  • Airport or primary runway closure → hard NO-GO (0% WX Score)
  • Airport-closing TFR → hard NO-GO (0% WX Score)
  • RWYCC below your aircraft's hard minimum → hard NO-GO
  • IFR approach outage on a planned IFR flight → 5–15 point penalty
  • GPS/RAIM outage affecting planned RNAV approach → up to 10 point penalty
  • RWYCC below your aircraft's soft threshold → 10–20 point penalty
  • All NOTAM deductions appear in the score breakdown alongside weather deductions

New — FICON Field Condition Card

  • FICON NOTAMs (US) and RSC reports (Canada) render a dedicated Field Condition card with a visual RWYCC 0–6 gauge per runway surface
  • Hard and soft RWYCC thresholds configurable per aircraft in your Aircraft Profile
  • Inline text highlighting calls out the most important values (DA, HAT, RVR, contamination type) directly in NOTAM text

New — Canadian NOTAM Coverage

  • NOTAMs for Canadian airports (CY-prefix ICAOs) fetched live from Nav Canada's public NOTAM service
  • ~80 major Canadian airports (CYVR, CYYZ, CYUL, CYYC, CYEG, CYWG, and more) seeded nightly
  • Smaller Canadian airports fetched on demand at briefing time — no gaps for north-of-border flights
  • Canadian RSC runway condition reports parsed and mapped to the same RWYCC 0–6 scale as US FICON

Heads Up

  • PlaneWX NOTAM data is not a certified pre-flight briefing under 14 CFR 91.103 — always obtain an official briefing before flight
  • NOTAM data may be delayed up to 30 minutes — time-sensitive items (pop-up TFRs) should be verified with ATC or 1800wxbrief.com
  • European and other international NOTAMs are not yet supported
Learn more:How NOTAM filtering works →Setting your RWYCC minimums →
Trip Planning

Paste a Full Route String

Copy a route directly from ForeFlight, Garmin Pilot, or your printed flight plan and paste it into the New Trip dialog. PlaneWX resolves the waypoints, strips airways, and auto-fills Origin and Destination — including international routes across Mexico, Canada, and the Caribbean.

New — Route String Paste

  • Paste a full ATC/FMS route string (e.g. KROG ZORLA WALTO FST J42 ELQ UJ10 CUL UJ32 SJD MMSD) directly into the Waypoints field
  • Airways stripped automatically — US jet (J), victor (V), and high-altitude (Q) airways, plus international airways like UJ and UM
  • 5-letter GPS fixes and 2–4 letter VOR/NDB identifiers resolved using live AIRAC data
  • First token auto-fills Origin; last token auto-fills Destination — including overwriting your home airport when the route starts somewhere different
  • International VORs and navaids resolve correctly — Mexican (SJD, CUL), Canadian (YVR, YYZ), and Caribbean fixes all supported
  • Unresolvable identifiers (procedure names, airline codes) are silently skipped without breaking the rest of the paste
Learn more:How to paste a route →Watch the video walkthrough →
International Coverage

Phase 1 & 2 International Airport Support

PlaneWX now supports flights to and from international ICAO airports worldwide. Two phases shipped together bring ECMWF model weighting, regulatory context, runway condition codes, worldwide navaid resolution, and a new suite of international hazard detectors.

New — International Airport Coverage

  • Enter any 4-letter ICAO code worldwide as departure or arrival (EGLL, LFPG, MMMX, YSSY, etc.)
  • METARs and TAFs fetched from NOAA's worldwide ICAO data feed
  • ECMWF is now the primary forecast model for routes outside the continental US — automatically weighted over GFS for non-CONUS routes
  • International SIGMETs (severe turbulence, icing, volcanic ash, tropical cyclones) checked against your route corridor
  • US-only products (G-AIRMETs, WPC discussions) automatically suppressed for international routes — no empty sections

New — Regulatory Context

  • When both airports are outside FAA jurisdiction, your briefing now includes a Regulatory Context block
  • Covers applicable rule sets: EASA (Europe), Transport Canada, and general ICAO Annex 2 VFR minima
  • Alaska (PA-), Hawaii (PH-), Puerto Rico (TJ/TI-), and US territories (PG/PW-) correctly identified as FAA jurisdiction — full domestic analysis applies
  • Disclaimer added to international briefings noting potential data gaps and advising use of local aviation weather services

New — Runway Condition Codes (RWYCC)

  • METAR runway state groups (8-digit ICAO Annex 14 format) now parsed and translated to the standard RWYCC 0–6 scale
  • Friction coefficients mapped to RWYCC using ICAO Doc 9137 Table 4-1 thresholds
  • SNOCLO (runway closed due to snow) detected and triggers a hard NO-GO
  • CLRD (runway cleared) recognized and elevates the RWYCC appropriately

New — International Hazard Detection (Phase 2)

  • Tropical cyclone warnings: active storms within 500 NM of your route are flagged, with intensity, direction, and NHC advisory link
  • Orographic wind hazards: Föhn (Alps), Bora (Adriatic), Mistral (Rhône Valley), Tramontane (Gulf of Lion), Chinook/mountain wave (Rockies), Norwester (Canterbury NZ), and Zonda (Andes) detected by region
  • International terminal forecasts: GFS model-derived hourly forecasts for international airports without TAF service
  • 24-hour METAR history injected into briefing context for non-CONUS airports, helping the AI identify recurring fog, diurnal winds, and ceiling patterns

New — Worldwide Navaid & Waypoint Database

  • International VORs, NDBs, and DMEs imported from OurAirports — worldwide coverage for physical navaids
  • US navaids remain authoritative from FAA NASR (never overwritten by international sources)
  • New source column in navaid database tracks data provenance: nasr, ourairports, or airac
  • 5-letter GPS fixes resolved on demand via AIRAC.net (live AIRAC data, updates every 28 days) with write-through caching — fixes appear instantly for future requests

Improvements

  • Proxy weather station generator now works for international airports (previously limited to US airports in some fallback paths)
  • TAF self-proxy guard extended to K-prefixed 3-character FAA IDs (e.g., O61 and KO61 are the same airport)
  • Headwind, terrain, and icing gotcha thresholds recalibrated for high-performance and FIKI-equipped aircraft
  • Alaska ECMWF bonus now longitude-constrained to prevent misclassifying Scandinavian airports
  • isFullyUsJurisdiction gate correctly handles Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and Guam for regulatory classification

Bug Fixes

  • Fixed crash on long-haul routes (PANC→PHNL, KBOS→EGLL, etc.) caused by single-airport jurisdiction check receiving undefined as second argument
  • Fixed leftover merge conflict marker in briefing route that blocked the Vercel build
  • Fixed RWYCC friction threshold: RWYCC 5 now correctly maps to μ ≥ 0.40 (was ≥ 0.45); RWYCC 2 now correctly maps to μ 0.26–0.29 (was 0.25–0.29), aligned with ICAO Doc 9137
  • Fixed two real RWYCC parser bugs found via live METAR validation
  • Fixed 2 ECMWF bounding box bugs discovered in integration test suite
Learn more:Flying Outside the US →Proxy Weather Stations →

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