Current Weather and Climate Information Links:

Current weather information and forecasts

• Western Washington Weather Forecasts from the National Weather Service
• Sea-Tac meteogram
• Forks sounding
• Northwest/N Pacific 24 hr satellite loops: IR, water vapor.
• Camano Is. radar loop
• MM5 loops:sea level pressure, winds, 925 mb temp, precipitation, 500 mb heights, winds, temp.
• National 3 hr radar loop
• National 3 hr geostationary satellite loops of IR, Vis, water vapor.
• National surface analysis (sea-level pressure/winds/weather).
• 500 mb height loops using NCEP Global Forecast System model analyses and forecasts: Northern hemisphere, polar view, 7 days ago to 5 days ahead, and NE Pacific/N America-centered view with superimposed sea-level pressure contours, 6 days ago to 5 days ahead.
• Jackson, Miss. 00Z 5 Mar 03 sounding
• Department of Atmospheric Sciences Weather and Climate Data Page (local weather info, forecasts, highway reports; MM5 regional forecast model output, and many links)
• Many more UW weather loops
• Intellicast (weather forecasts and ski conditions)
• Unisys Weather (national and regional plots of current weather conditions, weather forecast model output, hurricanes, sea-surface temps (under Archive link)--all you need to be a weather weenie!),
• National Weather Service: Seattle, WA (complete local weather reports, climate info, marine forecasts, river conditions)
• NOAA Geostationary Satellite Server - real time satellite imagery for most parts of the world and all regions of the US.

Climate and climate change

• Plot of extreme and average daily high and low temperatures at Sea-Tac for the period 1931-1990.
• Plot of 1961-1990 monthly-mean rainfall, snowfall, and probability of measurable precipitation.
• Washington State Climate Summaries from the Western Regional Climate Center

• Washington and Oregon Mountain Snow Depths:  Monthly totals vs climatology

• El Nino/ La Nina information from NOAA.
• Loop of Pacific Ocean sea-surface temperature anomalies over the last year.
• Looped vertical section of equatorial Pacific ocean temperature vs. time for the last 5 years.
• U.S. Environmental Protection Agency: Global Warming Home Page
• Trends: A Compendium of Data on Global Change (From the Carbon Dioxide Infomation Analysis Center)

Ozone Hole

• The Ozone Hole Tour presented by Cambridge University, England.

Other interesting atmospheric phenomena

• Karlsruhe Wolkenatlas- a beautiful atlas of over 1800 on-line cloud photos (in German, but you won't find this much hindrance).
• Lightning research and detection from satellites
• CIMSS Tropical Cyclones
• National Hurricane Center/Tropical Prediction Center
• Storm Prediction Center - severe thunderstorm and tornado statistics and information.
• NASA Earth Observatory - monitoring our changing planet from space using state-of-the-art satellite remote sensing.

For fun

• WSDOT highway weather info, traffic-cams, etc.
• Iraq weather information
• Meteosat Full Disk IR (centered on Europe/Africa)
• GMS Full Disk IR (centered on eastern Asia and Pacific)

Other links on campus

• Program on the Environment
• Pacific Northwest Climate Impacts Group at UW

Movie Demos:

• Molecular gas law demonstrator
• Balls on a Rotating Plane: This illustration is in some ways analogous to the Coriolis Force. However, the curvature of the earth's surface and the effects of gravity are not taken into account.
• A Parcel (Initially at Rest) Reaching Geostrophic Balance: This demonstration provides force diagrams at succeeding parcel positions. The red arrows indicate the pressure gradient force, the green arrows indicate the Coriolis Force (which always points 90 degrees to the right of a parcel's motion in the Northern Hemisphere), and the dashed blue curve indicates parcel position with time.
   

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