Definition
A map-based display of current surface weather observations, in which each reporting station is shown as a colored symbol (typically a flag or dot) indicating the flight category at that airport — VFR, Marginal VFR, IFR, or Low IFR — based on the ceiling and visibility reported in the underlying METAR.
Plain English
A weather map that shows, at a glance, which airports currently have good or bad flying weather. Each airport appears as a colored marker, and the color tells you whether conditions there are good for visual flying, marginal, or instrument-only.
Context Anchor
Seen on multi-function displays, electronic flight displays, and aviation weather map pages that show data-linked airport weather.
Derivation
‘Graphical’ means presented as a picture or map rather than as text. A standard METAR is a coded text report; a graphical METAR takes that same information and plots it on a map so the pilot can absorb it visually instead of reading and decoding each report.
Why Pilots Care
Allows rapid assessment of airport conditions for go/no-go decisions without decoding text.
Grounding Statement
On the display, each reporting airport becomes a small weather marker that can be compared with nearby airports at a glance.
Intuition Check
Graphical does not mean the display creates new weather information or a forecast. It means the reported METAR information is being shown visually on a map.
Example Sentence 1
Before departing, she pulled up the graphical METARs on her tablet and saw a line of red IFR markers along her planned route, prompting her to delay the flight.
Example Sentence 2
Graphical METARs displayed a blue symbol indicating VFR conditions at the alternate airport.