Still Looking At An El Niño Winter?

Figure 1 Last issue, I said that we would take a break from El Nińo and take our yearly look at Christmas weather, but I just realized that there is still one more issue before Christmas, so let’s finish up our El Nińo discussion. In the previous articles we discussed how the “normal” flow across

Cold And Warm Water Affects Our Weather

Before I dive back into our discussion about El Nińo, did anyone really think we would get through this winter without seeing regular good old-fashioned cold weather? I think we all knew that the amazing period of mild weather would eventually come to an end, but you know, I secretly think there are a lot


Continuing Our Look At Thunderstorms

In the last issue, we started talking about thunderstorms and I was forced to end the article in what you might call a “cliff hanger.” We discussed how we need a strong difference in temperature vertically in the atmosphere, with cold air located over top of warm air. Then I went on to say that

Oscillations And Acronyms

In our last weather school lesson we took a look at Rossby Waves. You know, the long-term wave patterns that slowly undulate across our part of the world bringing with them much of our ever-changing weather. Yes, I did say much of our weather, as everything can’t be blamed or explained by just looking at


Rossby Waves

Last time in weather school we started to examine why our particular part of the world has such changeable weather. We looked at general global circulation patterns and then examined the zone where westerly winds bump up against easterly moving polar winds, creating giant eddies of swirling air. This week we are going to continue

Conflicting Areas Of Wind

At the end of our last weather school article I hoped that we would see an early strengthening of the subtropical high which would then hopefully bring a warm and early start to spring. Instead we saw what our part of the world is famous for, big intense areas of low pressure. This week in


Most Of The World Has Predictable Weather

Our little break from weather school seems to have stretched out for over a month now. Well, Reading Week (or should I say “Month?”) is over and it’s time to get back to work! In our last lesson we continued our look at atmospheric circulation, and in particular, we built upon our general model of

General atmospheric circulation

After the last couple of weather school lessons on wind, we now have a basic understanding of what drives our winds. With this knowledge we are now ready to take this information and start piecing together the bigger picture of global winds, or what is referred to as general atmospheric circulation. We now know that


Gravity, pressure, Coriolis, friction = wind

The bigger the difference between areas of high and low pressure, the faster the air will move between them. Most public schools get a couple of weeks off over Christmas and some private schools will give three weeks, but here at Weather School we’re so nice that we give over six weeks of holidays from

Cold facts about wind chill

As we slowly move toward the heart of winter, I felt it was a good time to take a quick look at wind chill. When we indicate the temperature outside, we are talking about the actual temperature of the air, but depending on the conditions, this may or may not be a true indication of