SPECIAL NOTE: Customers needing a copy of Weather Analysis & Forecasting Handbook First Edition (originally sold 2011-2021) may obtain a copy at this link for a limited time, or until copies are depleted.
Weather Analysis & Forecasting Handbook is the ultimate guidebook for anyone who needs to know the details of operational weather analysis and forecasting, not just theoretical aspects and basic concepts. It is written for actual forecasting without difficult math or a extensive review of physics and weather history.
Weather Analysis & Forecasting Handbook is the perfect companion to our other title, Weather Map Handbook Handbook, and our meteorologist's desk reference Weather Forecasting Red Book. It replaces the Weather Forecasting Handbook, though we will continue to make the former title available to those who want to collect it.
The book Extreme American Weather is a reference guide for the most significant forecasting events that have ever occurred in the United States. Surface and upper-air charts detailing the event's lifecycle are combined with summaries, newspaper accounts, and meteorological information. Extreme American Weather is also educational and interactive, presenting twelve unanalyzed events with solutions and discussions so that readers can try their hand at travelling into the past and analyzing historical weather.
Who it's for
With technical content that's light on theory and complex information, Weather Analysis & Forecasting makes a great selection for avid professionals, weather enthusiasts, storm chasers, emergency managers, broadcasters, boaters, and anyone who wants to learn practical, everyday forecasting in an refreshing format.
About the author
Tim Vasquez began a meteorology career in 1984 writing the weather page for a Dallas newspaper. From 1989 to 1998 he was an Air Force meteorologist and worked at two television stations. He developed the Digital Atmosphere weather analysis software system in use worldwide. Residing in Texas, he is a software programmer, a consulting meteorologist, and a columnist for Weatherwise magazine.
Contents
1 PHYSICS 1.1. Mathematics 1.2. Time 1.3. Distance, direction, and velocity 1.4. Mass, force, and pressure 1.5. Temperature 1.6. Density 1.7. Water 1.8. Coriolis force 1.9. Wind forces 1.10. Geostrophic wind 1.11. Gradient wind 1.12. Cyclostrophic wind 1.13. Vorticity 1.14. Horizontal coordinate systems 1.15. Vertical coordinate systems 1.16. Scale 1.17. Atmospheric structure 1.18. Global circulation 2 OBSERVATION 2.1. Observation networks 2.2. Observation coding formats 2.3. Temperature 2.4. Dewpoint 2.5. Wind 2.6. Pressure 2.7. Visibility 2.8. Weather 2.9. Clouds 2.10. Automated Surface Observation System (ASOS) 2.11. Ocean observations 2.12. Upper air systems 3 THERMODYNAMICS 3.1. Phases of matter 3.2. Adiabatic changes 3.3. Stability 3.4. Instability 3.5. Soundings 3.6. Sounding interpretation 3.7. Instability quantification 3.8. Potential instability 3.9. Symmetric instability 4 UPPER AIR ANALYSIS 4.1. Constant pressure charts 4.2. Long waves 4.3. Short waves 4.4. Divergence and convergence 4.5. Vertical motion 4.6. Jets 4.7. Jet streaks 4.8. Thermal advection 4.9. Thickness 4.10. Water vapor measurements 4.11. Frontogenesis and frontolysis 4.12. Vorticity 4.13. Q vectors 4.14. Isentropic analysis |
5 SURFACE ANALYSIS 5.1. The surface chart 5.2. Air masses 5.3. Frontal concepts 5.4. Cold front 5.5. Warm front 5.6. Quasistationary front 5.7. Occluded front 5.8. Dryline 5.9. Outflow boundaries 5.10. Sea/land breeze fronts 6 WEATHER SYSTEMS 6.1. Baroclinic lows 6.2. Baroclinic high 6.3. Cold-core barotropic low 6.4. Warm-core barotropic low 6.5. Cold-core barotropic high 6.6. Warm-core barotropic high 6.7. Arctic air outbreaks 6.8. Winter weather systems 6.9. Climate oscillations 7 SATELLITE 7.1. Satellite hardware 7.2. Imagery types 7.3. Satellite imagery limitations 7.4. Clouds 7.5. Patterns 8 RADAR 8.1. How radar works 8.2. Dual-polarization data 8.3. Problems and pitfalls 8.4. Weather signatures 8.5. VAD/VWP wind data 9 CONVECTIVE WEATHER 9.1. Thunderstorm structure 9.2. Multicellular storms 9.3. Supercells 9.4. Mesoscale convective systems 9.5. Wind profiles 9.6. Tropical weather circulations 9.7. Tropical cyclones 9.8. Tropical cyclone forecasting 10 NUMERICAL MODELING 10.1. Model characteristics 10.2. Model geometry 10.3. Model production 10.4. Model techniques 10.5. Model implementation 10.6. Data assimilation 10.7. Parameterization 10.8. Limitations of models 10.9. Statistical models 11 PROGNOSIS 11.1. The forecast process |