A Brief Tour of the Portland National Weather Service
Website: A Hunt for Buried Meteorological Treasures
PURPOSE: Familiarize you some of the wealth of meteorological treasures to be
found using this web page. Follow the instructions and answer the questions in
bold.
THE MAIN PAGE: Press the control button while left clicking on:
http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/pqr/
You can also enter weather.gov/Portland in the URL address window
You will get this page:
CURRENT CONDITIONS: Scroll down below the map.
1. What is the current temperature in Portland?
RADAR IMAGERY: Look below the current temperature section. In the large box
at the bottom of the page, click on “Portland” above the small map.
2. Describe what you see.
Click on reflectivity composite loop.
Go back to the main web page. Go to the bottom box and click on Langley Hill
radar.
3. How is this different from the Portland radar?
SATELLIET IMAGERY: Return to the main page. In the box at the bottom, click on
Satellite. Scroll down the page that appears to this menu:
Click on the Northwestern US Visible 4km animation, and compare that to the
Northwestern US Infrared 4km animation.
4. Describe the differences between the two images.
Click on Infrared Pacific 8km.
5. What’s the striking difference between this image and the Northwestern
US Infrared image?
WEATHER MAP: Return to the main page, to the box at the bottom of the page.
Click on weather map.
6. What kind of weather is occurring and where?
WEATHER FORECAST: Return to the main page. Click on Vancouver on the map.
7. How many days out do forecasts go?
8. How many days out do wind forecasts go?
WEATHER DISCUSSION: Return to the main page. In the left-hand column, under
Forecasts, click on weather discussion.
Read the discussion. There is often a lot of technical jargon. This was written by
the forecaster who prepared the forecast, discussing the meteorological
reasoning used in making the forecast. Go to the Long Term forecast discussion:
9. From what you can decipher amidst the mumbo-jumbo, does it sound like
there is any interesting weather on tap in the long term?
WEATHER OBSERVATIONS: Return to the main page. In left-hand column, under
Current Conditions, click on observations. You will get this map:
On this map, click on each of the circled locations: AST (Astoria, OR), VUO
(Vancouver), PDX (Portland airport), and DLS (The Dalles, OR). You will use some
of this information later this term. These 3 letter abbreviations for places are used
on weather maps. You may recognize PDX- it is what you see as the destination
tags on your checked bags when you fly to Portland International airport. Each
airport has a 3 letter identifier- Sea-Tac airport in Seattle is SEA. Pearson airport,
next to Ft Vancouver, is VUO. Weather observations, which include temperature,
pressure, altimeter, wind, and sky conditions, are essential information for pilots.
10. How many days of observations are available for each location?
CLIMATE DATA: Return to the main page. In left-hand column, under Climate
select Local. You get this menu:
Under product, select Preliminary Monthly Climate Data (CF6). Under location,
scroll down and select Vancouver. Under Timeframe select Archived data, and
December 2011, as shown above.
11.What was the monthly precipitation for Vancouver in December?
12.Was the December precipitation above or below average? How much?
13. What was the average monthly temperature for Vancouver? How much
did it vary from Normal?
WEATHER BALLOON SOUNDINGS: Return to the main menu. In left-hand column,
under Additional Info select Other Useful Links. Scroll down and in lower right
hand corner select Upper Air Data (the weather balloon). You will use this tool
during the Cloud Lab and Cloud Diary. The chart, called a Sounding, depicts
temperature (the red line), dew point temperature (the green line), and winds
(the barbs along the right) measured by weather balloons launched every day at 4
am and 4 pm from Salem, OR. The horizontal blue lines with the numbers circled
in red are the height above the ground in pressure instead of feet above the
ground. You will plot one of these Soundings in Lab 2.
14. What is going on with temperatures in the area circled in blue? What is
the name of this feature?
QUANTITATIVE PRECIPITATION FORECASTS: Go back to the Other Useful Links
menu (with the weather balloon) and in the lower left hand column select
Precipitation Forecast. You will use these data in the Precipitation Log Project.
The left hand maps are forecast amounts of precipitation for 24 hour periods
from 12Z (4 am) to 12Z (4 am). For each day there are also forecast maximum and
minimum temperatures and freezing level- the height in feet above the ground
above which the temperature is below freezing the rest of the way up in the
atmosphere.
15. How far out do the forecasts go?
OTHER COOL STUFF:
On the main page in the left hand column under Additional Info, Items of Interest,
you’ll find:
Historical Storms is a source of ideas for Case Study topics, and a good source of
information to use in Case Studies. The snowfall data is of interest to snow fans. I
use the Sun/Moon table all the time. It shows time of sunrise, sunset, moonrise,
moonset, full moon time and name, and meteor showers. Here is January’s: