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 (Unisys)
• Lower-atmosphere profiles of wind and virtual temperature over NE Seattle remotely sensed using a wind profiler and RASS at NOAA Sand Point.
• Soundings from around the U.S. (U. Wyo., nicer format than above)
• Northwest/N Pacific 24 hr satellite loops: IR, water vapor.
• Camano Is. radar loop and Pacific NW composite radar loop
• ETA forecast model 0-72 hr loops (eastern Pacific and western N America): sea-level pressure(SLP) and precipitation
• MM5 forecast model loops: SLP, winds, 925 mb temp, precipitation, 500 mb heights, winds, temp.
• National 3 hr radar loop
• N Pacific/US 12 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.
• 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
• 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)
• Current mountain weather from automated sites (including most ski areas) around the Cascades and Olympics
• Northwest Avalanche Center
• WSDOT highway weather info, traffic-cams, etc.
• Intellicast (weather forecasts and ski conditions)
• NOAA Geostationary Satellite Server - real time satellite imagery for most parts of the world and all regions of the US.
• Meteosat Full Disk IR (centered on Europe/Africa)
• GMS Full Disk IR (centered on eastern Asia and Pacific)
• Data going into this morning's forecast (from ECMWF, Reading, England)
• NCEP Global Forecast System Ensemble Forecast Spaghetti Plots (5550 and 5760 m contours of 500 mb height for all 1-15 day forecasts in ensemble, looped over current 1-15 day forecasts to show how predictability of weather degrades with time).

Climate, climate change, ozone hole

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

Other interesting atmospheric phenomena

• Karlsruhe Wolkenatlas- a beautiful atlas of over 2000 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.
• Satellite image of Hurricane Ivan west of Cuba

Student cloud photo gallery

• Mt. Rainier lee wave clouds in altostratus (Chris Bretherton, 7 Nov 2004)
• Fog (taken by Troy Zielonka, 8 Nov 2004)
• Small 'leap year' cumulonimbus cloud over Woodinville (Kyle MacDonald, 29 Feb 2004)
• Stratocumulus (Cassie Flegel, 17 Nov 2004)
• Stratocumulus (Troy Zielonka, 17 Nov 2004)
• Cirrocumulus (Troy Zielonka, 17 Nov 2004)
• Cumulus congestus (Cassie Flegel, Oregon coast, Thanksgiving break)
• Waves in altostratus (Conlan, Thanksgiving break)
• Stratocumulus (Tanya Saul, Thanksgiving break)
• Altostratus patch (Karli Casto, early Nov.)
• Cumulus above Aruba (Tanya Saul, summer)
• Cumulus and orange sunset, Aruba (Tanya Saul, summer)
• Nimbostratus, Brooks Range, Northern Alaska (Leah Harrell, summer)

Other links on campus

• Department of Atmospheric Sciences
• Program on the Environment
• Pacific Northwest Climate Impacts Group at UW

Movie Demos:

• Animated molecular gas dynamics tutorial
• 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. Requires Quicktime.
• 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. Requires Quicktime.

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