A METAR reports FEW030. Does this layer constrain a Part 107 flight at 350 feet AGL?

Sky condition groups in a METAR pair a coverage abbreviation with a three-digit height in hundreds of feet above the reporting station. FEW030 therefore reads as few clouds at 3,000 feet. The trap in this item is the three-digit encoding: candidates who read 030 as 300 feet place the layer below a 350-foot flight and conclude the operation is blocked. There is a second concept worth separating here — FEW and SCT are not ceilings. A ceiling is the lowest broken or overcast layer, so a FEW layer never establishes one, which matters because Part 107's weather minimum is stated in terms of cloud distance rather than coverage.

FEW030 places the layer at 3,000 feet above the station, roughly 2,650 feet above an aircraft at 350 feet AGL. That is far beyond the 500-foot below-cloud clearance §107.51 requires, so the layer imposes no constraint on this flight.

METAR sky groups use SKC, FEW, SCT, BKN and OVC with heights in hundreds of feet above the station. Under §107.51 a Part 107 flight requires three statute miles of visibility and must remain 500 feet below and 2,000 feet horizontally from clouds.

Sky groups hide two zeros. 030 is 3,000, 015 is 1,500, 005 is 500. If the number looks too low to be a cloud, you forgot the zeros.

Remember that only BKN and OVC create a ceiling. Questions that hinge on FEW or SCT are usually testing whether you know that, or whether you can multiply by 100.

• •Reading the three-digit sky height as feet instead of hundreds of feet
• •Believing a FEW layer establishes a ceiling
• •Assuming any reported cloud layer grounds a Part 107 flight