This is a short note, taken from some email written to a new student, which gives a very brief (pun intended) overview of obtaining a weather briefing. A more complete discussion of the topic can be found in the FAA document entitled "How to Obtain a Good Weather Briefing", and can be found in the Reference Materials section of my website.
The executive summary of the document is to do the following :
Call 1-800-WX-BRIEF (1-800-992-7433)
Interrupt the automated message by saying "Briefer"
When asked for state, say "North Carolina" (duh)
When routed to a briefer give them the following information
Request a "Standard briefing"
Inform them that you are a Student pilot
Inform them that this is a VFR flight
N-number (whatever aircraft you have scheduled)
Aircraft type (Cessna 172 or PA28, depending)
Departure point (TTA, Tango Tango Alpha)
Estimated time of departure (you can give them local or Zulu time)
Proposed altitudes (2500 will often do for the practice area)
Route of flight (just tell 'em it is a local flight)
Destination (TTA)
Time enroute (1 hour)
With that done, they will give you a briefing. It will include the things you see on the WofC weather briefing form. This will be any adverse conditions, a synopsis of the overall weather picture, any enroute weather, forecasts, pilot reports, winds aloft, and notams. A copy of that form is available at :
If you are not comfortable doing this on your own, no worries. We’ll just do it together a few times until you are comfortable. But it is a fairly straight-forward process.
This is only one way to get weather, but for students this is a good choice because the briefers know exactly what pilots need, so there is no guesswork involved on the part of the student as to whether they have gotten all the requisite information.