A station model is a symbolic picture showing the weather at a reporting station. Meteorologists made the station model to put down many weather elements in a small space on weather maps. Maps thickly filled with station-model plots can be hard to read. However, they help meteorologists, pilots, and mariners to see important weather patterns. A computer draws a station model for every place of observation. The station model is mostly used for surface-weather maps. It can also be used to show the weather in the sky, though. A complete station-model map lets people study patterns in air pressure, temperature, wind, cloud cover, and precipitation.