Educational resources
My weather forecasting column Forecast Center (formerly You Be The Forecaster) has appeared in every issue
of Weatherwise magazine since 2001.
For access to complete courtesy copies of all older articles, click
here.
YOU are put in the storm chaser's decision chair. You'll either
get a bust day, a marginally interesting day, or a historically
significant day anytime between the 1970s and 1990s.
Will you succeed?
I've organized all the resources an operational meteorologist needs
for keeping up with identifier listings.
Links to resources
This is a list of websites and resources that I have recommended or used over the past 10 years.
Some links may be stagnant or extinct, so use with caution.
Have something to add? No problem! E-mail me at this
contact form, include the URL, and indicate that this is for my educational page.
In general due to issues with spammer websites, we will not add a link unless in our view it is sufficiently established or reputable.
(Limited updates were done in January 2012 to remove spammy .com links and fix some of the .gov and .com links; work is still ongoing.)
Assorted forecasting links
- Joseph Bartlo's articles --
(local link) are an excellent resource for the budding forecaster.
His site went down several years ago and my understanding is that he passed away in 2006;
these articles are provided for educational use only and to honor his contributions to forecast education.
- University of Wisconsin --
has an interesting summary of weather analysis principles.
- AWIPS --
all about the computer system the National Weather Service uses to
analyze weather and produce forecasts.
- Chuck Doswell's writings --
they're a must for anyone learning to analyze and are written in a
bold, no-nonsense style. Don't miss his
personal website which covers more some of the more
controversial and personal topics he has to share.
- UCAR Weather Page -- it's my
favorite site for weather analysis. All kinds of products are here that will
help you quickly compose a forecast.
- Albany raw data --
it's a good place to start if you want raw observations and raw data. Also try
Florida State University
and
UCSD.
- IWIN --
is the place to go if you want pre-prepared forecasts. Be sure to look at their
forecast discussions for each state to see a technical overview of the weather.
Don't know how to read them? Check out my
forecast discussion primer.
Discussion groups, forums, and newsgroups
Decoding raw data
- Office for the Federal Coordinator of Meteorology
-- this agency sets all guidelines for U.S. weather observations and practices.
Especially noteworthy is the
FMH #1
which tells you all you ever wanted to know about U.S. METAR observations.
- NWS Communications and Codes --
the NWS Telecommunications Gateway is responsible for processing all kinds of weather data,
so they have to know the ins and outs. You'll find some interesting resources
on their page.
Forecasting techniques
- Chuck Doswell's writings
-- an excellent start for all meteorologists. You can head directly to the
formal articles,
informal articles, and
essays.
- Chuck Doswell's Expressions of Opinion
-- these "non-official" and somewhat provocative articles from an expert meteorologist
address difficult topics most forecasters prefer to avoid, such as
the future of forecasting,
NOAA management,
forecaster training,
models,
and much more. A "must see"!
- ISA and other matters
-- all about the International Standard Atmosphere and different methods of
measuring pressure (QFE, QNH, QFF, and QNE).
- Joseph Bartlo's Excellent Weather Forecasting Articles
-- it's tough to find good, informal weather articles on the Internet, so
Joseph Bartlo's material stands out. Especially useful are articles on
surface analysis and
upper air analysis.
- Principles of Weather Analysis (U Wisc)
-- also has great info if you ever wanted to know what an isallohypse was.
- Vertical coordinate systems (Texas A&M)
-- all about the eta, sigma, and theta coordinate systems.
Convective/tropical forecasting
Radar
- WSR-88D Radar Coverage
-- Jian Zhang's excellent maps of geographic coverage vs. range and beam blockage
for the NEXRAD radar network.
Publications & Journals
- AMS Journals -- Get all the American Meteorological Society journals (those newer than
a few years ago require a subscription). This is a fantastic public service provided by the AMS and Allen Press which truly
exemplifies the spirit of scientific information exchange.
Organizations
Amateur & professional meteorologists
Software
EMWIN & NOAAPORT
EMWIN is a great datastream, but if you have serious cash on you, NOAAPORT is the way to go.
REALTIME DATA: General Pages
REALTIME DATA: Model Output
REALTIME DATA: Radar
REALTIME DATA: Satellite
REALTIME DATA: Raw Data
Note that the individual files are usually listed by hour in a format like
YYMMDDHH where YY=year, MM=month, DD=day, and HH=hour.
- Florida State University (FSU)
-- contains
METAR,
SYNOP,
upper air (world)
upper air (US),
text data,
and more.
- National Weather Service
-- spiffy! Also contains
METAR.
- University at Albany
-- contains
METAR,
SYNOP,
upper air,
and more.
- University of California at San Diego (UCSD)
-- contains
METAR,
upper air,
and more.
- Texas A&M Weather Page
-- excellent way to get METARs for a particular station going back a few days.
- NWS IWIN site
-- our favorite page for getting warnings, discussions, and other products.
REALTIME DATA: Plots and analyses
Of course nothing beats the capabilities of
Digital Atmosphere, but if you're
in a bind and need an alternate source, these sites will do nicely.
REALTIME DATA: Historical/archive
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