I've been a broadcast meteorologist on television since the early 1990's. Happy to answer any questions about the weather or local TV news. Yes, I often wear sneakers on set just out of view of the camera.
Tough to say without seeing the pictures. If you would like to post them somewhere with a link I'd be happy to look. You could also do a Google search for "cloud classification" and see if something looks familiar.
Complicated answer, Richard, but a good question. There are quite a few and I really can't give a number off the top of my head. Easily more than a dozen It is complicated because different models offer different solutions. Some are short range, some are longer range. Some are US based, others European and Canada and Japan. To further complicate the issue some models are run as "ensembles" meaning they are run from the basic initial data but small variations are introduced to give different solutions. The basic input data is collected twice a day from about 900 upper air sites, or weather balloons, launched twice a day, noon and midnight Greenwich mean time. The idea is to take a snapshot of the entire planet atmosphere at the same time. Also, more and more data, from satellites and radar for example, is now ingested into the models to varying degrees. A shorter answer is, on a regular day I'll look at three or four.
Hi, Jeremiah. Here is a great site. http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/
Hi, Kassy. I would start here: https://scied.ucar.edu/atmosphere-layers
Those folks are experts and you can also do a web search for "layers of the atmosphere". Good luck!
Pharmaceutical Researcher
Inner City English Teacher
SWAT Team Commander (Retired)
Hi, Randall. There are a number of colleges that offer degrees in meteorology. It would be helpful to know what you are more interested in since schools lean differently. Research, operational forecasting, broadcasting and private consulting are all options. I highly recommend internships so you can get a feel for each area. Good luck!
Hi, Hal. Uneven heating of the atmosphere helps create air pressure differences. Mother Nature tries to equalize the imbalance and air moves from high to low. Since the earth rotates the air is subject to Coriolis force and the air is deflected from moving perpendicular to the isobars. Thanks! https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coriolis_force
Great question, Jim. An Atlantic hurricane can come to Texas, and in a rare case New Mexico. The storms are guided by the upper atmospheric pattern of ridges and troughs. Imagine hills and valleys. The atmosphere is always in motion and a storm will take the easiest path, harder to climb a hill, easier to go through the valley. The general pattern during hurricane season has a hill over the Atlantic and storms will travel around the edge of the hill toward the valley in the eastern US, but remember the hills and valleys can change. Also, this year hurricanes from the Pacific have brought rain to NM and TX.
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