If the definition of the LFC is the height at which an air parcel is buoyant and can thus rise freely, then wouldn't that mean that any convective lifting between the surface and the LCL indicates an LFC below the LCL?

Convection implies buoyancy. So if you don't have buoyancy below the LFC, then does that mean the only mechanisms for lifting below that point are orographic, frontal, and convergent?

Is there an API or site that provides historical weather data?

I am trying to answer simple questions like: How many rainy days has Washington, D.C. had in 2024? Or, how does today's weather compare to this day last year?

Hi! What’s your favorite educational weather media? Whether it be facebook pages, subreddits or Twitter. I’m looking for people to follow who touch on the basics and educate while forecasting!

Local TV weather presenters often point out the record highs and lows for a particular date. Is this useful information? Is the Gregorian calendar accurate to compare daily highs and lows? Wouldn't a solar-based calendar make more sense to compare historical daily temperatures?

Trying to understand the full process of how frost forms and wanna know if my understanding is correct. I think I got it right but I'm questioning if the surrounding air and surface both have to be at their dew point for dew to first form on a surface.

For frost to form the surface of a wing and the surrounding air must first cool to their dew point. This is the point where water vapor in the air will condense and water droplets will begin to collect on the wing's surface. As the wing continues to cool to the freezing point the water droplets will then freeze and become frost.

So I was just playing around on zoom.earth, where you can look at different weather maps including atmospheric pressure. The website describes low-pressure areas as places with cloudy or windy weather, and high-pressure areas being associated with clear skies and lighter winds. On the same website, I tested wind speeds and the levels of pressure, and there is not always a correlation between them so I'm kinda confused. For example Chicago, it has high wind speeds, but high air pressure as well.

From other places air pressure is described to be lower at higher altitudes and vice versa, but why does Dubai have low air pressure right now? Isn't it near the sea level. Why is air pressure high in the Alps right now?

Another factor I also read about is temperature. As the temperature is increased, the air pressure should decrease, since the molecules are more energetic and tend to spread out. But then again, why does Madrid have high air pressure despite the hot weather.

I struggled to find a correlation between any of those factors, so what influences the pressure?

I've noticed that forecasts for air quality seem to miss the mark more often than other types of weather forecasts do. One obvious possibility why is that no one can predict when and where a fire may break out, or what other pollution sources may emerge. But even if we know about an existing fire, is it harder to predict the surface-level winds that carry smoke to our airways than it is to predict surface temperatures and precipitation? Or are wind forecasts fairly accurate, but not the estimations of what particles those winds will carry?

Or maybe the most complicating factor is something else? Alternatively, is my anecdotal premise faulty and are air quality forecasts actually quite accurate?

With NOAA's models and NHS, the forecast for Beryl didn't really target Houston until Friday 7/5 evening. The hurricane went by Houston on Monday 7/8. CenterPoint Energy apparently didn't prepare well enough and 2 million customers (i.e. families and businesses) lost power. There are still (as of 7/16) 120,000 customers without power.

It could have been even more of a surprise. I hear that some US politicians want to get rid of NOAA. What would the Beryl forecast have looked like without NOAA's GFS and HWRF hurricane models and the NHC scientists to interpret them?

I used to think low temperatures were around 6AM because that was just before the sun rose and heated the atmosphere, and high temperatures were around 4–5PM because that was just before the sun set and the air cooled. But highs and lows still happen around the same time in different seasons when sunrise and sunset are at very different times. Why is that?

How often are hurricane predictors correct? For example the current path for hurricane Beryl for the next week predicts it to hit Mexico around Thursday/Friday at a category 4. What are the chances that it will actually hit as predicted/ at all ? Are they pretty accurate usually or not? I know nothing about weather so apologies in advance of this is a stupid question -thanks 👍

I was driving through a thin line of severe thunderstorms on my way to work one day about 8 months ago and it went from cloudy to whiteout rain in a matter of about 15-30 seconds. What confused me was that at one point driving through this going 15mph, the rain stopped being a continuous downpour and instead came in waves with about 1-2 seconds between each. It would be one huge dump of rain, 1-2 seconds, then another huge dump, and continued like that for about a minute. Any ideas as to what caused that shift in the behavior of the rain?

Are tornadoes in the United States increasing in frequency or power due to climate change?

Why has it been so cold and, especially, WINDY, on Long Island this Spring? When will it moderate to more normal conditions?

Why has it been so cold and, especially, WINDY, on Long Island this Spring? When will it moderate to more normal conditions?

I frequently travel to the city for work, and on rainy, windy days, I feel like I'm going to get picked up by my umbrella like Mary Poppins. A raincoat isn't a great option for me because I need to carry a computer bag with me--I want it protected from the rain, too.

Do the vents of a double-canopy umbrella prevent the window from grabbing it and lifting upwards? Will I still feel like I'm getting taken off of the ground? Is there an umbrella design that will save me from taking flight?

Not sure if this is the right sub, but what causes frost to form in these lines? I also noticed this pattern on car windscreens as I was walking to the bus stop.

I saw The Day After Tomorrow and it showed vehicle's heating system breaking down because the weather was getting too cold and later one the entire automobile not working as the temperature went lower and lower into the negative F temperatures. The temperature kept dropping down so much that even the heaters of well developed public buildings like the New York Public Library broke down because it was too cold for the technology to cope.

I'm wondering is this possible irl? Like can a truck driver risk hypothermia because his truck's heating couldn't cope with the cold and stops sending warm air despite the rest of the truck still working? Or a hotel's entire heater system breaking down when it reaches below -40 F and everyone will heave to be in full inter gear inside the building to survive?

The Windy app lets you open up a page that compares hourly forecasts via GFS 22km, ECMWF 9km, ICON 13km, Meteoblue, NAM 5km, and HRRR CONUS 3km. Any similar recommendations?

https://www.accuweather.com/en/winter-weather/noreaster-to-dump-first-significant-snow-in-two-years-across-east-coast-cities/1608857

I have always thought with a Nor'easter the weather came in from the north east as described here, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nor%27easter

This weather seems to be moving from the west/southwest to the northeast.

I'm visiting Las Vegas this Christmas break and while I was talking about my trip at lunch, one of my classmates who isn't in my friends list came up and said she was at Las Vegas for Independence Day and that they took the trip to the Hoover Dam. On the way back to Vegas it became literal hell because the air con system stopped functioning and the whole one hour drive was like being baked inside a hot oven. The driver explained temperatures got so hot that day the bus's system couldn't handle it which is why the air conditioning started to send hot air instead of cooling the vehicle.

In addition when they were staying at a small motel, before going back to their main hotel over a temp stop, she said a the aircon in their room also stopped working. not even sending hot air and they decided to spend time at the lobby where it was still cold because the news stated it'll be 118 degrees by 10 AM. The official reasoning was again because the weather got too hot and some parts of the motel's cooling system couldn't cope.

I'm curious is this all plausible? I'm skeptical of my classmate's story because it never happened where I live where over 100 degrees F temperatures is the norm in Summer granted I live in a suburban town thats within a large geography of woods and not a hot desert and it never got anywhere close to 110 degrees, the most I remember was 104 degrees in F. But I'm having a hard time believing a modern used car can get its aircon screwed up by high outside heat let alone a commercial lodge's aircon not functioning in several rooms. Can this really happen?

So last night Vancouver received "record amounts" of rain ~50mm total, and there was a lot of flooding. (Max I saw was 8mm an hour)

I grew up in Hong Kong and the lowest level of rainstorm signal they have is the amber rainstorm signal. On Wikipedia it says they post the warning if they expect 30mm of rain in an hour.

I've also experienced red and black rainstorm signals (50 and 70mm of rain in an hour respectively) however the scale of rain and the degree of flooding doesn't add up. Last night's rain felt heavy almost as much as a yellow signal, and it's flooding like a red signal. Are there different standards of measurement? Or perhaps other factors affecting my perception of the amount of rain?

Despite it being fall season now, I got pretty cocky. A few times I went out without gloves to do some field work and within minutes my hands ended up getting cracks and very rough skin that hurt so much. Until I was told by a nurse to put liquids like lotions, moisturizers, hand creams or some other stuff on it, it was hell. I learned the hard way and now wear gloves when I go out for any amount of time more than 3 minutes. That said I'm curious why does this happened in cold weather esp if you're not wearing some winter gloves and how does lotions and other similar liquids quickly relieve it?

As colder seasons starts to kick in, I notice me and my friends use the bathroom far more especially if we spend a lot of time outside a heated building like say walking on the sidewalk across a row of stores and service venues at the center of town. I remember it being so bad last winter that we frequently had to make stops ever 10 minutes or so at the nearest store or restaurant a few times we went out for a short distant walk to the nearest arcade. I'm wondering whats the reason for this?

This is the diagram I am referencing.

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So, I've always had a difficult time understanding and visualizing constant-pressure charts, and I'm trying to tackle that. So this diagram shows a cold column of air over one city, and a warm column of air over another. It says that the surface pressure of these two cities are equal, since the mass of the air parcel above them is equal -- only the volume of the air parcel changes, thanks to changes in density. This, I understand. My question is: If there is a lack of air above the cold column, but there's still space for more, why wouldn't more air rush into that vacuum, resulting in higher surface pressures in the city beneath the cold column? Is it simply that the maximum height of the atmosphere (0mb) can be significantly lower with a cold-air column?

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A follow-up question to my first one would be: If it is true that air columns will vary in height, but surface pressure stays constant, then why aren't surface pressures everywhere on Earth the exact same, if the same mass of air always settles over it?

So, I've always had a difficult time understanding and visualizing constant-pressure charts, and I'm trying to tackle that. So this diagram shows a cold column of air over one city, and a warm column of air over another. It says that the surface pressure of these two cities are equal, since the mass of the air parcel above them is equal -- only the volume of the air parcel changes, thanks to changes in density. This, I understand. My question is: If there is a lack of air above the cold column, but there's still space for more, why wouldn't more air rush into that vacuum, resulting in higher surface pressures in the city beneath the cold column? Is it simply that the maximum height of the atmosphere (0mb) can be significantly lower with a cold-air column?

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A follow-up question to my first one would be: If it is true that air columns will vary in height, but surface pressure stays constant, then why aren't surface pressures everywhere on Earth the exact same, if the same mass of air always settles over it?

Hi, I would like to find out historically, on average, how many days of precipitation there are each month in Georgetown, SC, and Pawleys Island, SC. I'm not finding this on NOAA. Any ideas?