Student Activity
World Wide Weather
Introduction
How's the weather today? Is it the same as yesterday? Is it the same where
your friend lives in a distant city? Will it be different tomorrow?
In this lesson, you will describe weather all over the world. After exploring
causes of weather patterns, you will describe how weather in one location helps
predict weather in related areas.
Working in teams of four, you will study, chart, and write about the weather
and its effects on a particular city, for the month. Your team will construct a
multimedia presentation of its findings. Then the class will prepare a final
report that uses and merges the findings of all teams to demonstrate weather
patterns around the world.
What's Included
These pages include the following materials:
1. A data chart for recording daily weather observations
2. A tutorial for finding and downloading visible, infrared, and water vapor
imagery from geostationary (GOES) weather satellites
3. A KWL chart
Use them only as instructed by your teacher.
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Student Activity
Weather Chart
Date
10
Time
Temperature
High
Low
World Wide Weather
Rain and Snow
Cloud Types
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Student Activity
Using the GOES Server
(For Teachers)
Finding Geostationary Weather Satellite Images
Weather satellite imagery is especially useful when learners inquire about
clouds and where the clouds go next or what the clouds and/or the Earth look
like from space. The NOAA Geostationary Satellite Server provides instant
access to near real time and recent imagery from GOES satellites. There are
two GOES satellites in operational orbit above the Earth. While each is in orbit
over the equator, one is positioned to view the eastern United States and the
hurricane formation area of the North Atlantic Ocean, and the other is
positioned to view the western United States and the East Pacific Ocean.
Imagery is processed and archived for free retrieval for three or four weeks.
Except for occasional maintenance periods or radio reception problems, a fresh
image is archived every 30 minutes.
 Ensure your computer in Internet enabled.
 Launch your browser. Point your browser to http://www.goes.noaa.gov.
Notice the link panel along the left edge of the page. You are interested in the
Hemispheric section and the Special Images section.
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Student Activity
The Hemispheric section contains links to the current set of GOES-East and
GOES-West images, as well as views from non-U.S. weather satellites covering
other parts of the world. Feel free to explore these links the links located below
each displayed image. Learners will most likely find the three GOES links most
useful for obtaining daily imagery to compare with their ground observations or
news of weather events in other parts of North America.
In the Special Image Sets section the two most important and useful links are
GOES East Archives and GOES West Archives. These links open a GOES
Image Search page allowing access to the past four weeks of imagery at 30
minute intervals ending with the most currently available image.
Obtaining a current hemispheric image is simple. Obtaining a current or recent
image from a GOES archive is also easy with an understanding of two more
parameters: waveband and universal time.
GOES images are scanned in three wavelength bands:
 VISIBLE (like a black and white photograph)
 INFRARED (indicating temperature: lighter=colder; darker=warmer)
 WATER VAPOR (a different infra-red channel showing water vapor
concentration: lighter=greater concentration; darker=less water vapor).
Here is the same scene shown in all three wavebands (or channels).
Visible
Infrared
Water Vapor
The most information about clouds related to local weather and weather
predictions comes from examining and comparing all three although that much
detail may not be needed for this project.
The time stamped on each GOES image is given in universal coordinated time
(UTC) also called Greenwich Mean Time (GMT). This is the time at the Prime
Meridian or 0˚ longitude. To convert UTC to your local time, simply determine
the number of time zone changes between you and the Prime Meridian. Then
subtract that number from UTC time if your location is west of 0˚ longitude or
add it to UTC time if your location is east of the Prime Meridian. Reverse the
process to convert from your local time to UTC. The following chart may be
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World Wide Weather
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Student Activity
helpful in finding the conversion number for your U.S. time zone.
Current U.S. Time Zone
EDT
EST, CDT
CST, MDT
MST, PDT
PST
Convert to UTC
Local time + 4 hours
Local time + 5 hours
Local time + 6 hours
Local time + 7 hours
Local time + 8 hours
Convert to Local Time
UTC - 4 hours
UTC - 5 hours
UTC - 6 hours
UTC - 7 hours
UTC - 8 hours
UTC is also expressed in 24-hour format with four digits. The first two digits
indicate the hour and the second two indicate minutes of the hour. Morning
hours from midnight to noon are expressed with numbers less than 1200.
Noon is 1200h and is usually pronounced, “twelve hundred hours.” The “h” at
the end indicates this number represents time. Afternoon and evening hours
from noon to midnight are expressed with numbers between 1200 and 2400.
However, 0000h is midnight not 2400h. One minute earlier, 11:59 PM, is
2359h. For afternoon hours, simply add 12 to the hour on the clock, and drop
the colon (:). For example, 7:30 PM is in the evening so add 12 and delete the
colon resulting in 1930h. UTC is followed by a “Z” instead of “h” to indicate it is
the time at the Prime Meridian. The phonetic alphabet name for this letter is
“Zulu.”
To convert 6:45 PM Pacific Standard Time to UTC, add 12 and delete the colon
to get 1845h. Then subtract 8 to change to UTC and replace the h with Z.
6:45 PM PST = 1045Z (“ten forty-five zulu”)
To convert 1615Z to local time in St. Louis, Missouri (Central Standard Time),
first subtract 6 to get 1015h. Since this number is less than 1200 (noon), it is a
morning hour, so there is no need to subtract 1200. Simply add the colon and
AM indicating it is before noon.
1615Z = 10:15 AM CST
Now let's look at how to use the GOES Image Search page available from the
GOES East Archive and the GOES West Archive links. The steps shown below
apply equally to both. After trying this sample, feel free to explore by trying
other options.
 In the Special Images section, click GOES East Archives. The GOES East Image Search
dialogue is displayed.
To view an image you will highlight a selection in each of the five search
parameter sections then click Submit Choice. If the image is available it will be
displayed. For example, suppose you want to find an image showing the central
United States about midday on Wednesday, May 7. Suppose also that today is
Friday, May 9.
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Student Activity
Make the following selections:
 What Sector? Highlight GOES EAST CONUS for the central and eastern continental
United States.
 What Day? Select Wednesday.
 What Week? A week is defined as Sunday through Saturday for the purposes of this
search page. Since the day of interest is within the same calendar week as the day of
the search, highlight THIS WEEK.
 What Channel? Select INFRARED.
 What Time? Scroll and highlight 1715Z.
 Click Submit Choice
. The infra-red image should be displayed. If the image for
that type and time is not available, try an hour or two before or after the original
selection.
 Note the header and footer bars on the displayed image.
From left to right, the header information at the top of the image gives the date
and time the image was scanned by the remote sensor on the GOES satellite:
(month, day of the month, year) and UTC time of the image.
From left to right, the footer indicates the image is made available by the
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Student Activity
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and its system of
weather satellites. The wave band of the image is next: IR (infrared), VISIBLE,
or WATER VAPOR. This is followed by the image resolution (the ground size of
each image pixel) and NOAA’s web address.
Any image can be saved to a file on your local computer. It will download as a
JPEG files.
 Follow the directions on the screen for PC Users or MAC Users to save the image to
your local hard drive.
 Click the browser’s Back button to return to the GOES Image Search page.
 If another image is needed, make your selection and click Submit Choice.
 When you are finished, simply close your browser.
Teachers should use this tutorial to become familiar with a means to obtain
GOES weather satellite images. If desired, they are free to explore adapting
these pages for use with students, and design the adaptation to meet the
various
needs
of
students
and
classroom
situations.
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Student Activity
Know
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World Wide Weather
Want to Know
Learned
More Lessons from the Sky, 2014, Satellite Educators Association