#Tim vasquez digital atmosphere software
I’m dedicating this section to one person because he has made a career of creating software programs and writing amazing books specifically dedicated to the serious weather amateur. I always find something new when I look through it, and I’ve had the book for ten years. If I were teaching a basic course in broad weather movements with visual explanations to middle and high school children, I would use this book. The really cool contribution of this book is that it provides basic, graduated explanations of the atmospheric circulation (i.e., Rossby Waves, Hadley Cells, Jet Stream, etc.) in the first part of the book including how the circulation relates to the satellite visuals and national/local weather. Observe how the different real-time images change as the flow of the atmosphere moves forward. Here’s a neat way to use this book interactively: go to the Penn State GOES Satellite website. Seeing "real-time," different slices of the atmosphere in various modes such as infrared or water vapor and the entire array of cloud formations gives one insight and observations that really help to understand atmospheric movements and how they will affect your location. Remember that the atmosphere is really like a constantly flowing, undulating combination of gases at different levels.
![tim vasquez digital atmosphere tim vasquez digital atmosphere](http://www.weathergraphics.com/tim/vel.jpg)
The ability to ‘read’ satellite visuals in different modems give us a way to see the weather literally as it unfolds. The title is a bit misleading, but this particular book is a real find. Conway and The Maryland Space Grant Consortium. The next book is special: An Introduction to Satellite Image Interpretation by Eric D. There is an excellent two-page graphic explanation of numerical weather forecasting that makes sense for the ‘mathematically challenged’ But, if you just need one small book this one is excellent. I assume this is a British author, so you get a different perspective. One small handbook I have found quite useful is the Firefly Guide to Weather Forecasting by ‘Storm’ Dunlop (figure that first name!). This is an excellent guide, especially for national/local weather systems and many color plates for specific cloud observations. The first is The National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Weather. There are two excellent “handbooks” that cover the global movements but quickly focus on local weather observations and predictions. This is self explanatory, giving the reader the very broad aspects of weather.
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The first is close to home: The AMS Ultimate Guide to American Weather. These books will give you an idea of the broad concepts of the atmosphere so you can understand how they affect your observations locally: “Think global to act local,” The next ‘slew’ of books deals with the overview type. One of the more fascinating explanations is that the foundation of the present numerical models is based on three partial differential equations developed by Wilhelm Bjerknes and the Bergen School of Meteorology in Norway. This is really a modern history of numerical weather forecasting and the creation of the present models we use today. My next suggestion is The Weather Machine by Andrew Blum.
![tim vasquez digital atmosphere tim vasquez digital atmosphere](http://www.weathergraphics.com/da/daws11.png)
This is an excellent introduction to some of the early giants of modern meteorology and the creation of the national weather service (available on Kindle). The first is a wonderful book called Inventing Atmospheric Science: Bjerknes, Rossby, Wexler and the Invention of Modern Meteorology by James Rodger Fleming. But unless you are a weather history buff, just breeze by these suggestions. A s great as computers are, people still make things happen. I am very much a student of the history of meteorology: the scientific, technical ‘giants’ and personalities of the past who contributed so much to the profession. I divide the books into general weather and more specific aspects of meteorology. History of Meteorology and Numerical Weather Prediction
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I have found this to be useful in making a forecast as well, but that is a subject for my next blog post. My experience with meteorology is that I learn more when I go from broad and wide to narrow and focused. You really don’t need to read a ton of books if you are an amateur, but you should get some orientation and familiarity with terms and processes. There are so many books on meteorology that it can stagger the mind. I value my library card more than my driver’s license.