Introduces basic weather terms and concepts.

Describes the changing nature of weather and how meteorologists predict and study such storms as tornadoes, hurricanes, and blizzards.

The diurnal variation of mass divergence and vertical velocity is documented for tropical summertime oceanic weather systems in the Western Pacific, Western Atlantic and the GATE region. It is shown that this diurnal variation is very large and has the same basic character in all regions.

The geostrophic system of equations with both the effects of orography and heat contrast corresponding to land-sea distribution is integrated with respect to time by using the spectral method. The computed results show the appearance of reasonable blocking situation and a corresponding double jet stream in the latitudinal distribution of the zonally averaged zonal wind.

Mesoscale convective systems (MCSs) have a large influence on the weather over the central United States during the warm season by generating essential rainfall and severe weather. To gain insight into the predictability of these systems, the precursor environment of several hundred MCSs were thoroughly studied across the U.S. during the warm seasons of 1996-98.

Recent observational studies of upper-tropospheric and lower-stratospheric winds atop mesoscale convective systems show the development of anticyclonic outflow....As the magnitude of the anticyclone increases, the inertial stability of the system is reduced, resulting in a decreased partitioning of the initial available potential energy to the balanced state of the system.

This paper presents a diagnostic study of two models proposed by Betts (1973a). The first was a model for a well-mixed sub-cloud layer capped by a more stable transition layer. The downward heat flux at the base of this transition layer is here estimated from the thermal structure of the layer to be 15-25% of the surface sensible heat flux. The second model was a model for a two layer lapse-rate structure for the cumulus layer. A sensitivity analysis...

A guide to weather phenomena and climate which explains precipitation, ocean currents, weather prediction, pollution, and global warming, plus activities, weather facts, records, and statistics.