Weather Forecasting

This assignment will help you better understand the cyclogenesis and weather forecasting lessons, and provide a basis for better understanding of public weather forecasts and products in the future.

Regardless of when you do this assignment, it is important to use information from roughly the same time, as comparing charts and images from different days and vastly different times of the same day are like comparing apples and oranges. So, when you do this assignment, set aside an hour or so to do it all at once…so that your surface map, radar, satellite, and upper air are all from the same day and close to the same time of day!

To start, copy the following link:

http://weather.unisys.com/surface/index.php

The current surface weather chart should pop up. Click on the image beneath the words “surface data.” When it comes up, save it.

1. What is the date/time of this chart (hint, upper left hand corner, in Greenwich Mean Time)?

2. Locate a cold front. What direction are the winds ahead of (east of) the cold front? How about behind (west of) the cold front?

3. Is there any precipitation shown on the chart? If so, where? Is it along frontal boundaries?

4. Locate a High and a Low-pressure system and in words describe the location.

5. Copy the following link:

http://weather.unisys.com/satellite/index.php

which should take you to an infrared satellite image near or at the time of the surface analysis. As before, click on the image beneath the words “Infrared Satellite Images.” How do the cloud features compare to the surface features?

6. Now copy this link:

http://weather.unisys.com/radar/index.php

which should take you to the current Doppler Radar mosaic under the words “radar Data.” Click on the image. How do the radar precipitation features compare to the surface chart? To the satellite image?

7. Now copy the following link:

http://weather.unisys.com/upper_air/index.php

which should introduce the upper air menu page, with an image of the current 500-mb chart. Click on the chart below the words “Upper Air Data.” Then, save it. Locate the upper-air troughs and ridges that correspond to the surface high and low you analyzed in question 4, and describe how they match up, or where they are relative to one another (i.e., is the upper trough east of the surface low, etc).

8. Submit via Canvas or email, and send to me the surface chart, the 500-mb chart, and answers to the questions above.