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Reported ceiling

Asked by: 5317 views , ,
Airspace, FAA Regulations, Instrument Rating

The ceiling can be reported as broken, overcast, or vertical visibility. My question is what is the difference between OVC007 and VV007? I know what OVC007 means; it is the lowest overcast layer but vv007 is confusing...when I go to an airport that is reporting vv700 what I am expecting to see.

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1 Answers

  1. Best Answer


    Dmitriy on Dec 15, 2014

    Vertical Visibility is defined as the vertical distance that an observer or some remote sensing device can see into a cloud.

    Let’s say, for example, there is fog over an airport. Fog is basically a surface cloud, and therefore knowing where the ceiling is above that cloud may not be possible. So instead they publish a vertical visibility through the fog (cloud) to an indefinite ceiling.

    Vertical visibility is generally interpreted as an indefinite ceiling up to whatever altitude VV is specified. Indefinite ceiling basically means that “we can only see this high, but we have no idea how high the ceiling actually goes, or if there’s any other layer above that.”

    Hope that helps,
    ~ Dmitriy

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