Meteorology

Table of Contents:

Weather Channel

Sea breezes

Weather World

University of Wisconsin: SSEC

WW2010: University of Illinois

National Weather Service Forecast offices

USA Today Weather Site

Purdue University: Current Weather site

AMS Datastreme Project

Virtual Weather Map Room: Current Weather

Hurricanes

Blizzard of 1996

The Weather Channel, already a tremendous source for current weather data, and "meteorological tidbits" has added an education area to its website. To access go to:

http://www.weather.com

Weather World, sponsored by a University Park TV station, examines the science of weather forecasting and discusses current meteorological topics.

http://www.ems.psu.edu/WeatherWorld/

Looking for a site with current weather data (available soon) AND an outstanding tutorial section? Be sure to visit the WW2010 WEATHER SITE at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). This site provides diagrams and text to support topics including fronts, clouds, severe weather and much more. Additionally, case studies of Hurricane Andrew and Superstorm '93 are archived here.

http://ww2010.atmos.uiuc.edu/(Gh)/home.rxml

USA Today has created an excellent site with thorough information on weather and other science related topics. Many fine diagrams and illustrations are utilized to support the content addressed on each topic. This site has a teacher page and has info appropriate for middle and high school students.

http://www.usatoday.com/weather/wfront.htm

The American Meteorological Society has developed a weather education website associated with a professional development initiative called the Datastreme Project. This website has tremendous resources that every science educator can make use of. Would you like a current surface plot of weather conditions across the U.S.? Its available here! Would you like that with all data plotted? just temperature reports? temperature reports with isotherms? pressure reports only? pressure reports with isobars? Get the idea? Using this site, YOU choose the degree of sophisitication and detail that you want to present to your students. Images accessed here can be saved for general classroom use OR printed for individual student use. Satellite and upper air data is also available. All images load quickly so that even a slow Internet connection will be able to take advantage of this site.

http://atm.geo.nsf.gov/dstreme/

The Miami Museum of Science has developed a comprehensive website about HURRICANES. Although it is geared towards elementary school age students, it has some features that could be of great value to teachers of middle and high school students. Specifically, from the home page, link to "Killer Storms" and you will find two worthwhile features. Linking on the hurricane warning flags brings the viewer to a list of watches and warnings that may be issued in advance of an approaching tropical system. Linking on the radar screen takes you to an interactive exercise where you can track and plot a hurricane. This exercise provides excellent practice in locating a point by latitude and longitude. Consider the possibilities in a mapping unit, regardless of the theme!

http://www.miamisci.org/hurricane/

For a nice description of how SEA BREEZES form and a descriptive series of diagrams, visit the USA-Today site linked below.

http://www.usatoday.com/weather/wseabrze.htm

The University of Wisconsin&emdash;SSEC has probably the best collection of real time and near real time images available on the web today. At this site, you can download the latest GOES satellite images. Each is presented in great detail. One warning: the downloads often exceed 300k, thus taking time if you have a slow Internet connection. If you are looking for spectacular sea surface temperature (SST) images, this is truly the place! The site also maintains a volcano watch of the world's ten most active volcanoes.

http://www.ssec.wisc.edu/data/

NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE FORECAST OFFICES from all over the nation can be accessed from this site. Look for the office near you, link to it and discover what resources they have posted at their local site. Often you can access updated weather forecasts, local warnings, and local data.

For residents of the Northeast, I highly recommend a visit to the Albany, NY NWS site. Current forecasts and data are available at this site for all locations from Virginia to Maine. The CURRENT DATA section contains a wealth of maps and images (satellite, radar, etc...) The FORECAST DATA section contains access to most of the currently available forecast models for those who wish to hone their own forecasting skills! These models report both regional and national data.

Finally, an extensive RESEARCH section includes several case studies of various weather events including the July 1995 "Super Derecho" that occurred in the Adirondak Mountains.

http://www.ugems.psu.edu/~owens/nwsfo.html

 

Purdue University provides an outstanding CURRENT WEATHER site. From the link below, you can access current surface and upper air maps, satellite images (visible, IR, and water vapor), computer forecast models, radar information (local and national) as well as tutorials explaining how to interpret the images and models. This is a very complete and educationally valuable site.

http://wxp.atms.purdue.edu/

The VIRTUAL WEATHER MAP ROOM, maintained by Prof. Jon Kahl of University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee provides a wealth of CURRENT WEATHER DATA similar to that which is provided by Purdue University. Prof. Kahl has even linked to some of the Purdue WXP maps. He does have some unique features though, be sure to check out the surface maps, current radar (he uses Intellicast), and snow cover maps (seasonal)

http://www.uwm.edu/~kahl/106/106_wx.html

Looking to do a case study on a major snowstorm? Check out this site, where Cornell University has posted findings from the Blizzard of 1996 that impacted much of the Northeast. Having personally experienced this one, I can vividly recall nearly 72 hours of continuous snowfall with a final accumulation in excess of 30 INCHES in Northern New Jersey! I distinctly recall my lawn chairs slowly disappearing into a sea of white!

http://met-www.cit.cornell.edu/blizzard96.html