Hi everyone,

I’m currently a Geographic Information Systems MS student and a full time worker doing a lot of science support (i code all day!) working with telescopes. I have a B.A. in astronomy and physics, but lately I’ve been wanting to try some other passionate of mine; weather! hurricanes! tornadoes!

I decided to start my MS in GIS because i felt very intimidated about going back to school for atmospheric sciences or meteorology. I lost a lot of confidence when I took my physics classes but still managed to get my degree with an above 3.0 gpa. However, although GIS is very cool and interesting to me, I wanna get more into the science of weather in general.

I’m looking to possibly just get a GIS certificate and apply to Atmospheric Science or Meteorology MS degrees. I will most likely need to do this online as my source of income is my current job and I need it to pay for my MS. My questions are the following:

Are there any good MS online programs out there? Is a GIS certificate useful for atmospheric science / meteorology or is a MS better? What kind of jobs are out there for people with MA degree? What can I do to prepare myself for a possible MS if I have a physics and astronomy degree? What’s the difference in jobs between a certificate and a masters?

Also to clarify I’m not interested in teaching or doing a phd. I just find weather /climate to be so fascinating and I feel like I need to explore this interest somehow.

Thank you!

What is your driving preference in snow storms? Back way or expressway and why?

I have noticed in literature that the boundary for sea level rain/snow is often at the 540 decametre line in continental climates whereas for maritime climates this is 522/528 decametre (it’s raining today at 522 decametres) but can often be much lower. (Have seen rain at 516 decametre).

https://www.theweatherprediction.com/winterwx/thicknesscriteria/

Is this due to having a drier air column and thus a lower 0c wet bulb altitude?

Often here in the UK we can have an airmass with a 500/600 metre freezing level and 500/600 metre 0c wet bulb level due to saturation.

Would a continental climate typically have a much lower 0c wet bulb level in such an airmass?

To my fellow meteorologists and enthusiasts on this sub, what is a good final CS project I can work on?

Hello. I’m here asking for advice on how to build a tornado machine that’s capable of creating multiple vortexes. I’ve been searching the web and YouTube and can’t find a source that explains the build and setup. I have access to a 140x140x140mm and a 256x256x256mm 3d printer, so I’m able to create parts if I need to.😁 If anyone knows I’d be very happy to hear it!

Is it just a shadow? The sky was clear for the most part aside from some wispy clouds. It was about 1.5hrs after sunrise which was behind me. Most answers I’ve found suggest contrails but I didn’t see any aircraft’s around.

I'm looking for the best weather maps (design, layout, colour, symbology, etc.) for communicating weather/weather warning to broader public. I'm especially interested in precipitation maps, but looking forward to other good examples as well.

Can somebody help explain this to me. I've heard the water moderates the temperature of the land area it's nearby as it's water takes longer to cool and warm as opposed to land. Now on the other hand I hear folks in places like Chicago or on the coast talk about the lake breeze or the ocean breeze that is wildly cold and makes the area colder. Can you guys help me understand this? Can both things be true?

A few examples I'm wondering about...

Lake Michigan for Chicago

Lake Erie for Cleveland and Buffalo

Long Island Sound for Long Island

Delaware Bay for South Jersey

Would these bodies of water make these areas warmer or colder during the winter? Very curious, thank you.

I am possibly thinking of going to college for meteorology this fall. However I have heard that the job market for meteorology is not good. I am wondering if the class of spring 2024 has had good luck finding jobs or has it been tough?

Edit: when did it start to get bad?

So I’m trying to figure out what conditions would be necessary to cause a fog so think that you’d need a red nosed reindeer at the front of an aerial vehicle to be able to see, at the end of December.

I was outside tending to farm animals during a rainstorm. It’s been raining all day with thunder in the distance, so I finally decided just to go out and do my chores because it wasn’t getting any better. I was walking in the yard and all of a sudden saw a bright flash right in front of me, but I didn’t hear any thunder. It looked as though somebody had flashed a camera right in front of my face. It’s daylight outside, so to me it was super bright and vivid for it to be daylight. It probably wouldn’t have startled me as much as it would’ve been night because its easier to see lightning flashes throughout the sky at night, but for it to light up that intensely right in front of me during daylight was extremely unsettling. Needless to say that I got back inside as quickly as possible.

I heard that University of Alabama at Huntsville was good for a meteorology degree. Has anyone gone there and can tell me a bit more about what it offers?

Hey guys, can someone help me understand the following.

A weather station in a city at the coast, so altitude is between 0 and 15 meters, is recording relative pressure of 1026 hpa and absolute pressure of 1020 hpa. How is this possible? Shouldn't the pressure at sea level be constant at 1013.25 hpa? Additionally, shouldn't both relative and absolute pressure be the same at coast level?

Thanks in advance!

So how do these giant snow flakes form??? Found these on a frozen river in Vinnitsya Ukraine a few years back and have been wondering ever since.

Coastal CA tornados are extremely rare. I've been looking at this day (yesterday 14th December, 2024) on public sources. For the 6am local tornado warning (the 1st ever for SF), I can see the rotation, maybe some bow and hook style radar returns along with 500mb and 250mb divergence "jet streak" and high speed troughs that could cause rapid strengthening. This micro/meso scale development did result in high winds with some rotation but no tornado. It moved inland and dissipated. You can even see it on band 9 satellite as well as radar.

Later in the day, 1:40 pm an EF1 tornado did touch down in Scotts Valley, a couple of miles inland and about 60 miles? south of SF. The rotation started off shore and moved directly East and intensified. It is 1 pixel in size for most of its lifetime and doesn't really look like a supercell. On band 9, there isn't anything visibly spinning, but there is a wedge of dry air that mixes in. On radar, there isn't rotation on the composite mode, but there is a 1-2 pixel diameter on rotation mode which survives landfall.

Has someone taken a deep look at this storm, professionally or out of curiosity?

In particular, there are two areas:

I think that I understood where the rotation came from in the 6am bay mouth event, but I could be wrong.

I just can't see where the rotation/intensity is coming from in the 1:40pm 21:40 Z event. What was the setup and what was I missing?

I have no formal education in this, so I could be missing something obvious.

Hello everyone, I live in a remote area in Sweden and about 2 hours ago I saw a flash outside the window, and a few seconds after our house rattled and shook, like a small earthquake. At first we thought there was an explosion nearby, but did not see anything outside (but it’s dark outside and snowing heavily). Now we hear from other people almost 10 kilometers away they saw and felt the same thing. There was no other thunder sounds before or after, it was very quiet. Could this still be a lightning strike? Even though there was no noticeable thunderstorm and the shockwave was felt so far away by others?? Or could this be something else?

Is there anyway of knowing with relative confidence that a storm season will or won’t be severe? Or is it more of a see how the season starts to develop and go from there?

It was visible to the naked eye and - as you can see - there were no clouds.

I'm doing a research project on increasing humid heatwaves in California and I'm trying to find data from weather stations. I found NCEI but it's saying I need to contact them, which seems cumbersome and time consuming. Is there another source that has this data?

Meteorology has always been one of my interests since I was young. I would go to school to become one if money was not an issue. What resources can I use to learn meteorology on my own?

I thought maybe it had to do with the gulf stream or something. We have cold north winds today and the rain seems to show up near the drop in oceanic elevation

I saw 5 Anvil Clouds yet no storm, Anvil clouds ussauly lead to storms, yet later there was clear weather, clouds the clouds just be dissicipating? (Its Late Autumn)(I cant fit more photos)

This week I was in north Sweden, just a few Kilometers away from the polar circle, where I saw this beautiful Clouds.

I have a question regarding this stratus layer over the Delmarva area. Any thoughts on what caused it? There is a large subsidence inversion and the base of it corresponds to the stratus layer height but I'm confused on how it formed. Winds are out of the northwest at 25 knots at the layer height, but there is a huge high pressure system advecting moist air off of the coast right now I'm assuming. Any thoughts? Just curious

From the forecast discussion for this area:

.NEAR TERM /THROUGH TONIGHT/...
Only minor change with this update is to adjust sky grids to
reflect a swath of mid level clouds persisting near and over the
Delaware Bay. It appears as if this  should linger
through much of the morning, but not expecting a significant
impact on day time temperatures. Robust high pressure remains
entrenched over the region for one more day. Thus, tranquil and
cool conditions continue through tonight. Some slight airmass
moderation will  temperatures today should be a degree or
two higher than yesterday.

https://preview.redd.it/js8hxv877t6e1.png?width=503&format=png&auto=webp&s=5254d80f82192b18f3bcab08fe73b3dc5fc4ee64

I found this on Local News: [More lake-effect snow in spots: Cleveland weather forecast for December 12, 2024] https://www.newsdeliverdaily.com/share/2010022?args=01YqDtwCU0ZQ%2BDmdSKZsHBUPdmyrs99I4GXBZ8TufpujKtq1kiv%2BDya%2Bf059%2BXPL1r3dbtPFRd3KSEdLp7wvtplbnh7HKi3ukDowTJ3p5Qy%2FsxAELT24jcj%2BwIvHiF%2BEO2c7yDYlNW%2Ft3FZ0cdRq5Hud%2Bbm1eZYHmJ9jurFhZKs%3D

https://imgur.com/a/mTzmwl6