Gibraltar Airport, Iberian Peninsula

• Weather observations
Weather observations at the airport are crucial to safe takeoffs and landings. In the US and Canada, the vast majority of airports, large and small, will either have some form of automated airport weather station, whether an AWOS, ASOS, or AWSS, a human observer or a combination of the two. These weather observations, predominantly in the METAR format, are available over the radio, through Automatic Terminal Information Service (ATIS), via the ATC or the Flight Service Station.
Planes take-off and land into the wind in order to achieve maximum performance. Because pilots need instantaneous information during landing, a windsock is also kept in view of the runway.