Tony’s Weather Links

Here are a few of my weather-related websites, with a bit of description and commentary. For a more comprehensive set of links, see my Weather Bookmarks ?.

Favorite Weather Sites

Weather Underground has just about everything the weather watcher could want: forecasts, radar, satellite, numerical model outputs (NAM and GFS), hurricane tracking, etc. They even have data from my own back yard!
Today's Convective Outlook provides a map and a discussion of potential severe convective weather for today, produced by the Storm Prediction Center.

Weather News and Events

Global Hazards / Extremes highlights damaging, deadly, and extreme weather events monthly (beginning with January 2003).
Storm Reports provides preliminary reports of tornadoes, hail, and strong winds for today, plus provides a daily archive back through 1 June 1999.

Conversions and Calculations

Windchill Chart and formula (the latest official one adopted in 2004).
Heat Index Chart (for when the temperature is over 90F).
Estimating the Water Equivalent of Snowfall

Climatological Data

Most Popular Free online data sets and publications from the National Climatic Data Center. Includes some global climatological data, too.

Observational Data

GOES Project Science provides real-time, full-resolution, calibrated and navigated GOES images. Maintains archive of all images for up to nine days. Note IR3 is water vapor, and IR4 is "traditional" infrared.
Unisys Weather provides a complete source of graphical weather information, adequate for the weather professional but can useful for the casual user as well. The graphics and data are displayed as a meteorologist would expect to see; but, there are detailed explanation pages to guide the layman through the various plots, charts and images.
The University of Washington Dept. of Atmospheric Sciences stores several days worth of full disk GOES imagery; this page provides links to other observational and climatological data and model forecasts, naturally with an emphasis on the Pacific Northwest, but covering all of CONUS as well. They also have an image archive covering the last few days.

Numerical Models

Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) Model — a next-generation mesocale numerical weather prediction system designed to serve both operational forecasting and atmospheric research needs. It features multiple dynamical cores, a 3-dimensional variational (3DVAR) data assimilation system, and a software architecture allowing for computational parallelism and system extensibility. WRF is suitable for a broad spectrum of applications across scales ranging from meters to thousands of kilometers. WRF is a collaborative partnership, principally among the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (specifically, the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) and the Forecast Systems Laboratory (FSL)), the Air Force Weather Agency (AFWA), the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL), Oklahoma University, and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). WRF allows researchers the ability to conduct simulations reflecting either real data or idealized configurations. WRF provides a flexible and computationally efficient operational forecasting model continually incorporating advances in physics, numerics, and data assimilation contributed by the research community.

Societies

The American Meteorological Society (AMS) promotes the development and dissemination of information and education concerning atmospheric sciences and related oceanic and hydrologic sciences, and the advancement of their professional applications. The AMS currently has a membership of more than 11000 professionals, professors, students, and weather enthusiasts. AMS publishes nine atmospheric and related oceanic and hydrologic journals (in print and online), sponsors more than 12 scientific conferences annually, has published more than 50 monographs in its continuing series, and offers numerous programs and services. The AMS administers two professional certification programs, the Radio and Television Seal of Approval and the Certified Consulting Meteorologist (CCM) programs, and also offers an array of undergraduate scholarships and graduate fellowships to support students pursuing careers in the atmospheric and related oceanic and hydrologic sciences.
The National Weather Association (NWA) is a member-led, non-profit, professional association supporting and promoting excellence in operational meteorology and related activities since 1975. Members have many opportunities to share information, news, studies and concerns related to operational meteorology and related activities through committee work, submitting correspondence or articles to NWA publications such as the Newsletter, National Weather Digest and the Electronic Journal of Operational Meteorology, making presentations or leading workshops at the Annual Meeting, helping to maintain and add information to the NWA Web site, and to network. Members join together on many outreach education/training initiatives to students, users of weather information, and the general public. Members also have the opportunity to volunteer for many leadership positions in the organization. Weather Broadcasters have the opportunity to earn the NWA Radio and Television Weathercaster Seals of Approval. The NWA also sponsors an Annual Awards program to recognize excellence, college scholarships, grants to K-12 teachers and other programs. Membership fees provide full voting membership, National Weather Digests, monthly NWA Newsletters, reduced registration fees at NWA Annual Meetings, and reduced costs for NWA Monographs and Publications and more.