The Human METAR

Happy 4th of July Eve…Eve………Eve everybody! Either way we are halfway through the year of 2010. Wow is all I have to say.

The first of July tells me that I only have 29 days until my new job starts. Yup, that’s right, I got a job offer a few weeks ago and have officially accepted it. I will be working with the Cooperative Institute for Climate and Satellites, which is located in downtown Asheville, North Carolina (same building where NCDC is located). It’s going to be a new adventure for me, as I will be permanently moving to western North Carolina. While I am excited, I am also sad to leave my friends and family behind.

On another topic, I have created a BETA version of the RUC map room. Take a look at it here and let me know what you think. My next step is to try and mix and match different displays, as the only map that is different is the RUC SBCAPE.

I don’t use Internet Explorer, because I feel that it is the root of all evil. So over the past few years I have used Mozilla Firefox, and recently I started using Google Chrome (I urge everyone to use chrome, especially if you are still on Windows XP). While it is great, I sometimes forget that most of the people out there use that dreadful piece of garbage Microsoft puts out.

While most of the time it’s not a concern of mine, I started to realize that the theme I was using for this site looked funky in IE 8 and IE 7. It would work fine in other browsers, but for whatever stupid reason the text would be REALLY BIG in IE. After fighting with myself (cause I REALLY liked that theme) I found a theme that should be compatible with all of the browsers.

And with a new theme come some more updates. Changed things around a bit, and added two more cycles to the GFS model runs (out to 84 hours now instead of 72). Why 84 you ask? Well I have decided to create the same parameters for the NAM model as well (so comparisons can be made). And since the NAM only goes out 84 hours, I might as well be consistent.

Look for the NAM models to be out sometime tomorrow. I also have some big news coming within the next few days so stay tuned!

Happy Graduation Eve (and 400th post!)

So I have revamped the website to integrate some features from my Plymouth website here. Here is a list of the new features

• New Current Weather Page (with exclusive METAR map updated every hour)
• New Forecast Weather Page (with exclusive GFS models updated every 6 hours)
• New resume page with an updated bio page
• New links on the right hand side, including links to some social networking sites

A quick little update on my life. I will be graduating with my Master’s degree tomorrow during PSU’s graduate commencement ceremony. And June 1st I will be starting a summer internship with the NH Department of Transportation.

In the meteorology world, Omega is a term used to describe vertical motion. When there is rising motion, an air parcel will cool down, and eventually reach the environmental dew point. Saturation occurs and generates clouds and precipitation. This is very important for any kind of weather system. Without rising motion, there are no awesome weather events to talk about.

Finding omega is tedious, and not very accurate, but there are a few methods out there to use. The most common one is the Quasi-Geostrophic Omega equation which determines vertical motions by two main terms: thermal advection and differential vorticity advection. However there are a few problems with this equation, so others have been created.

Trenbirth: The advection of vorticity due to the thermal wind. If this advection is positive, then w is positive, indicating rising motion.

Q-Vectors: These vectors point towards rising motion. Q-Vector convergence will indicate rising motion

For those meteorology nuts out there, we know that the thermal wind runs parallel to thickness. SO plotting both the 700mb vorticity and 1000-500mb thickness, we can subjectively determine where there is rising motion. We can also confirm by overlaying Q-Vectors.

Therefore, I present my 3rd Gempak Map (CLICK ON IMAGE FOR FULL RESOLUTION IMAGE):

The white lines are 1000-500mb thickness, the yellow colors are 700mb vorticity (relative, not absolute), and the arrows are q-vectors. This map could be used as a creative way of determining rising motion. While subjective analysis is needed, the Trenbirth and Q-Vector equations don’t have as many assumptions as the traditional form of the omega equation.

To look at live maps, you can check them out on my map wall by clicking here

GEMPAK (also known as NAWIPS) is a powerful product used to generate your own weather maps. While it is tedious to learn (VERY TEDIOUS), it is very rewarding in the end. You have the ability to create maps similar to those used by meteorologist in the field, as well as using your creative minds to generate something different.

Over the past few weeks I have begun testing gempak on our cyclone server here at Plymouth State. Above is an 850 hPa map showing colors of temperature (°C), lines of geopotential height, and wind barbs in knots. I have made a few other maps as well, and they can be seen on my map wall.

The scripts i used to make these maps are run 4 times a day, via cron, to coordinate with the GFS runs at 00,06,12, and 18Z. It first loads the Gempak NTS files created via the gempak program GDPLOT3, the script will then readjust the time and then create maps in 6 hour intervals. Before the script is run, another script is envoked to remove the previous images.

One of my goals over the next few weeks is to beef up my map wall. So far I only have 3 products:

• 850mb Heights/Temps/Winds
• Surface 6-Hour Precip
• 700mb Vort/Q-Vectors/1000-500mb Thickness

The third one is a little tricky to explain, and it is not fully completed yet, so stay tuned.