Definition
An airport-issued report describing the surface condition of each runway, including any contaminants present (such as water, slush, snow, or ice), the depth of those contaminants, and the resulting braking action expressed as a numerical Runway Condition Code (RwyCC) for each third of the runway.
Plain English
A report from the airport that tells pilots what each runway feels like to land or take off on right now -- whether it's wet, slushy, icy, or snow-covered, how thick that layer is, and how good the braking will be.
Context Anchor
Pilots encounter Runway Condition Reports during preflight planning, before landing, and whenever weather or surface conditions may affect runway use.
Why Pilots Care
It determines whether the runway is safe for landing or takeoff and directly affects calculations for required landing distance and go/no-go decisions.
Intuition Check
Do not read this as a casual description of the runway. A Runway Condition Report is an official airport assessment, not just someone’s opinion that the runway looks good or bad.
Example Sentence 1
The ATIS included a Runway Condition Report showing one-quarter inch of wet snow on Runway 27 with a Runway Condition Code of 3, so we recalculated our landing distance before the approach.
Example Sentence 2
The latest runway condition report indicated braking action was fair due to patchy ice.