Definition
An airport facility staffed with contract personnel who take weather observations and provide current local weather information to pilots by radio and telephone. These observations supplement the official network of automated and primary weather reporting stations.
Plain English
A small airport weather station, run by trained contractors, that gathers and shares local weather with pilots. It fills in gaps where there is no full-scale weather reporting facility.
Context Anchor
Seen in FAA weather and airport information when describing where local aviation weather observations may come from.
Derivation
Supplemental comes from the Latin supplementum, meaning something added to complete or fill out. Here it signals that these locations add to, rather than replace, the primary weather observation network.
Why Pilots Care
Provides pilots with weather details at smaller fields that lack full automated systems, supporting safer flight planning and decisions.
Intuition Check
Do not read “supplemental” as meaning casual or unofficial. Here it means an added weather service location that supports aviation weather reporting at that airport.
Example Sentence 1
Before departing, the pilot called the Supplemental Weather Service Location at the destination to get the latest visibility and ceiling.
Example Sentence 2
Although outside the main network, the Supplemental Weather Service Location supplied useful updates during the preflight briefing.