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Camp Internet Meteorology
What is Meteorology
Meteorology is the study of the weather. Knowing about tomorrow's weather helps people around the world be better prepared for the activities that lie ahead in their life Today, airplane pilots, ships captains, kids going to school, parents driving to work, skiers hoping for sport, and surfers awaiting a big wave all are interested in knowing what's up with the weather.
Weather watching is actually an ancient science, one that has passed on from generation to generation in oral societies. Often these experts were called Rain makers. Their skill in not only predicting, but purportedly actually BRINGING rain was held in high esteem by their peoples. Even in recent times, Native Americans at ceremonies have been seen to call rain clouds to them from across a valley or over a mountain. There are mysteries to this skill. But there is also a science at work learning to predict and better understand weather.
Where does weather come from ?
At the most basic level, weather is caused by two primary forces : precipitation and wind. Precipitation is the moisture drawn up out of our oceans that forms clouds. The more moisture drawn up, the darker the cloud. The darker the cloud the denser the water molecules. As the winds blow the clouds toward the land, the clouds are attracted to mountain slopes with trees, and most often the rainiest places on earth or forested mountain tops. Sometimes a mountain can essentially steal all of the rain out of the clouds on one side, while its other/back side remains completely dry. Many deserts are lands that sit in a rain shadow where little cloud moisture ever comes. No matter where you live, the quality of the water in the ocean effects your life because it is where your rain comes from.
What about wind ?
Winds are most simply understood as the movement of air in our atmosphere. This movement is often caused by the solar-heated land warming one body of air, while the sea or colder land cools another body of air that sits above it. Where these warmed and cooled bodies of air meet, they have to decide who goes under and who goes over, the warm air tries to rise and the cold air tries to sink. This is the wind at work - warm and cool air pushing one another around, the cooler air heading down and the warm air heading up. It is always going on at different rates in different places. Winds can bring temperature drops or rises that dramatically effect life on the land and at sea. The winds can change direction so suddenly that they can tear the mast off a ship, turn a small brush fire into a raging inferno, or make a mountain pass to dangerous to drive. The winds bring us rain, or blow it past us with out a drop. And when they are most threatening, we have hurricanes and tornadoes circling at hundreds of miles an hour, lifting up and tearing apart everything in their path.
Who knows what is coming ?
The most comprehensive weather service in the world is the U.S. National Weather Service. This organization is a division of NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, a division of the US Department of Commerce. The National Weather Service funds weather stations all over the country and up in the sky that gather weather data and send it to central computers. The NOAA computers that turn the data into wonderful maps and charts that are used by weather casters on television, sailors heading out to sea, mountain climbers considering a dangerous ascent, farmers making major crop decisions, airlines, and almost everyone else dependent on knowing the weather ahead.
NOAA gathers its data from weather stations that could be on a ship at sea, on a GOES satellite (Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite ) in our upper atmosphere, at a radar station on a remote island, on a buoy floating off the coast, or from a station on top of our highest peaks. All of these locations gather and transmit data about the weather to help the NOAA scientists predict any dangerous weather that may be coming. With these predications, NOAA can save lives by getting people out of harms way when a tornado, hurricane, or flood is expected.
What is online ?
You can access weather information online from many different sources. You can read real NOAA charts and maps. You can tap into weather in different places using weather search engines. You can even see the real weather different places thanks to everyday people who have mounted video cameras on tops of buildings that have an Internet connection and feed e view of the weather to any viewer. You can learn about different cloud types, and learn what their appearance most often means will happen next in the weather pattern. All of these resources will help you learn to understand, prepare for, or even forecast the weather.