The equations of fluid motion.
In part 2 of today’s assignment, you will explore
remote sensing imagery and how it complements the surface plots and
frontal analyses you are familiar with by now.
Radar
The National Weather Service maintains a network
of radars across the country to sense the location and intensity of
precipitation.
Go to Remote Obs--Radar from the synoptic
homepage, and click on
National Radar under the NWS Radar heading
of the right-hand sidebar.
This shows a mosaic of the data from
all the radars in the country. For more detail, click on the map
to access any particular radar, or view one of the regional mosaics
below the national map.
(a) Note where it is precipitating, and use the
surface plots to characterize the precipitation type (rain, snow,
etc.) Surface plots are found under Station Obs--Surface.
(b) How does the location of the precipitation
relate to the location of fronts? (Station Obs--Surface, Surface
Maps (NWS) in the right hand sidebar). If the precipitation is
near a front, is it right along the front, on the warm side, or on the
cold side? If the precipitation is not near a front, what might
be causing it?
Satellite
Geostationary satellites constantly monitor
infrared and visible radiation emitted by the earth and atmosphere.
Both bands can be used to detect the location of clouds. Clouds
are very distinct in the visible band because they (generally) reflect
visible light much better than the surface. In the infrared,
clouds emit according to their temperature, and this can be used to
distinguish them from the (generally) warmer surface.
Go to
Remote Obs--Satellite from the synoptic homepage. Click
on IR and Vis at the top of the right-hand sidebar under
USA (Unysis) to
get the latest infrared and visible images of the country.
(c) Note the location of clouds and their position
relative to fronts, like in question (b).
(d) Is there are correlation between the cloud
temperature on the infrared image (the colder the temperature, the
brighter the color) and precipitation intensity on the radar?
Try to surmise some reasons for the correlation, or lack thereof.
*Please include the time of your observations*
3. Case study: Temperature Advection
In this part of the assignment we will try to relate the local
temperature tendency at a few locations to the horizontal temperature
advection during a warm air outbreak on January 8, 2008.
Note: you don't need the web for this part of the Assignment. Use
the hand out given in class.
NOTE. This is what is expected from Assignment
4:
Part 1- Reading
The equations of fluid motion..
Part 2 - Current Weather
a.) Answer four questions about remote observations
Part 3 - Case study
b.) Cold air advection at Boston (schematic)
c.) Warm air advection at Columbus (MCH, OH) and over
Sherbrooke (YSC,Quebek) (real case)
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