What Does BR Mean in a METAR?
BR means mist. It stands for from French brume - mist.
BR in a real report
BR
That reads as mist (visibility 5/8 SM or more).
What it changes for you
BR is fog that has not quite got there. The cutoff is visibility of 5/8 of a
statute mile: at or above it the report says BR, below it the report says FG.
That single threshold is why BR deserves attention rather than a shrug. A
field reporting mist at 1 mile on a cooling evening is a field that may be
reporting fog at half a mile in an hour.
The number that predicts it
Check the temperature and dew point in the same report. When they are within about 2 degrees Celsius and the temperature is still falling, the air is close to saturation and mist has somewhere to go.
A wide spread with mist reported usually means something else is at work, like smoke or a shallow layer that will burn off quickly.
Related codes
Decode a report containing this code
Paste a METAR, TAF, PIREP or SIGMET into the WxDecoder decoder. Every group comes back in plain English. The raw code sits beside it, so you can check the decode rather than trust it.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between BR and FG?
Only the visibility. Both are water droplets suspended near the surface. It is BR (mist) when visibility is 5/8 of a statute mile or more, and FG (fog) when it is below that. The same air can be reported as either as it thickens or thins.
Why is mist abbreviated BR?
From the French brume. Several METAR abbreviations come from French because the code is an international standard, which is also why fog is FG rather than something closer to the English word.