How do I access the new Australian weather forecasts?

Changes to the weather products provided by the BOM in Australia means that there are now several distinct reports to get the information.  Thankfully, AvPlan EFB brings them in to one place. and makes them easily accessible.  Tap the Weather tab to view the options listed on the left.

To access the weather for the area, tap Graphical Area Forecasts.

The Graphical Area Forecasts page works in two modes; Overview Mode and Interactive Mode.  In both modes, you can select between the first forecast period and the second by tapping the 0-6 HR or 6-12 HR buttons.

Overview Mode is when the map is zoomed out (see above).  Tap within a region to view the Graphical Area Forecast file. You can pan around this document, and pinch to zoom.  Tap the Close button to go back to the map.

To access Interactive Mode, simply zoom in on your region of interest.  If you have a flight plan open, you will see it displayed as a red line on the map.

The different weather regions from the GAF will be displayed in interactive mode.  Tap on the map to view the weather phenomena for that region (see below).

If places are mentioned in the data, you'll see them displayed on the map.  Both single places and multiple will be automatically extracted from the data and displayed (see multiple example above: YSTO/YBCV/MIE and YLRE/YTGM).

AIRMETs will be displayed on both Overview and Interactive modes.  In Overview Mode, the AIRMET text will pop up in its own window; whereas in Interactive Mode, the text will be at the bottom of the region pop up window.

Area Briefings replace the old Area Forecasts, and can be accessed by tapping Area Briefings from the Weather Menu.  These will contain Area QNH, TAFs and METARs, NOTAMs, SIGMETs, GPWT and GAF.

You can also view the Area QNH details for any area by double tapping on the EnRoute map. The Airspace list will pop up at the bottom of the device. Select the QNH AREA from the list and you will see the report text.  You can tap on the blue underlined text to draw subdivisions on the map (if they are in the text).