Terminal Forecasts La Crosse Airport Rochester Airport Aviation surface map, highlighting VFR/MVFR/IFR conditions.	The La Crosse office is responsible for preparing two Terminal Aerodrome Forecasts (TAF) for the La Crosse (LSE) airport and the Rochester (RST) airport. The TAFs are 24 hour forecasts issued four times a day for the airport and the surrounding vicinity. In the U.S., the airport is defined as a circular area within five nautical miles (nm)of the center of an airport's runway complex, and the vicinity is a doughnut defined area around the airport between 5 and 10 nm.
TWEB Route Forecasts TWEB Route 211 Milwaukee, WI to Madison, WI to La Crosse, WI to Minneapolis, MN. TWEB Route 218 Chicago, IL to Rockford, IL to Dubuque,IA to Rochester,MN. TWEB Route 242 Minneapolis, MN to Rochester, MN to Mason City, IA.	The office is also responsible for preparing three Transcribed WEather Broadcast (TWEB) route forecasts. The TWEB forecast products are an aviation weather forecast of all significant clouds, obstructions to surface visibility, and weather along a TWEB route during a 12-hour period. The routes are 50 nm wide corridors along a line connecting anchor-points of the route with a 25 nm semi-circle around the end-points. A TWEB local vicinity forecast covers an area with a radius of 50 nm, which may contain several airports.

Hot Air Ballon Forecast - (Issued around 2 p.m. daily - seasonal) Rochester, MN Additional information may be obtained from the FAA Automated Flight Service Station (AFSS) in Princeton. They may be reached at 1-800-WX-BRIEF (in Minnesota) or 1-716-389-5880 (outside of Minnesota).
Standard Briefing (from aviationweather.gov)
Regional Surface Map	AIRMETS/SIGMETS	CIGS/VSBY/Fronts

Regional newsletter dedicated to the aviation weather.

If I am not a pilot why would I be interested in these forecasts? The TAF and TWEB forecasts can be interesting to look at because they allow you to see what the forecaster believes the timing to be for different weather events. If you read a general forecast and it said rain developing during the afternoon; you would know that it was going to rain, but when will it start? The TAF forecast will give you the time that the forecaster believes that rain event will begin.

The times in the TAF and TWEB forecasts are given in ZULU (Z) time or Universal Coordinated TIME (UTC). These times may be converted to local time by adding/subtracting a given number of hours. To convert from Z time to Central Standard Time (CST), you would subtract 6 hours from the Z time. To convert from Z time to Central Daylight Time (CDT), you would subtract 5 hours from the Z time. Example, if a forecast time was 1800 Z; it would be 12 pm or noon CST.

Use this weather phenomena table to learn the abbreviations used for different precipitation types and obstructions to visibilities in the aviation forecasts.