Anybody interested in learning about weather?

[fourfingers]

PP. Count me in too.

Tony

[gropeher]

Count me in,
Can you start from the basics too please..

[first_mate]

PP
that would be fantastic.
I am interested.
Regards,
Angus

[al-straddie]

PP. Count me in too.

Tony

I moved to straddie 6 years ago and am still grappling with the vargaries of the local weather. Ive found it a lot more variable than where I came from(Port Macquaire), so an experienced local perspective is very valuable to me.

bring it on!!!!!

[Black_Jack]

PP

Sounds good you can count me in..

You may want a disclaimer of some type ..

[seatime]

The PinkPanther,
It would be great if you could explain how that upper level system effects the lower level system and so effects us.
As I understand it the upper systems are the height above MSL where you have 500mb of pressure. The highs and low systems shown are actually the height above sea level where you find 500 mb pressure and nothing to do with air pressure and isobars. Is this correct and how does the height of 500 mb pressure effect the climate in our part of the troposphere, never really got that. cheers Steve.

[SELY]

PP

Brilliant:- face-to-face would be the bees knees but, failing that, I believe MANY would benefit from some on-line education.

Night Stalker

[coxy]

I'm another hands up. (Also a rank novice at weather)

[bay_firey]

I'm with Newby

Would certainly love to learn more about the weather but being in Rockhampton, face to face or classroom sessions are out

[subzero]

I have done 3 weather courses with Ian aka pp as the instructor. The reason I have done 3 is that he is very entertaining and knowledgeable and also puts it in real terms with local examples. Everytime I have learnt something new.

Ian knows his stuff, so much so that 1 evening we had one of the Senior Meteorologists down from the B.O.M and ran a display through his laptop and overhead projector. Not only on the display, but out of the Meteorologists mouth as well, they had the winds going the wrong way in a tropical revolving cyclone. Ian scratched his head, pointed it out to the bloke and you could have heard a pin drop... the poor bloke went scarlet... this presentation had been shown at many public displays and B.O.M training days and it had never been picked up before.

fish2eat

The whinges about weather arise, in my opinion, because we see Meteorology taught as a science, and so we think of it like other sciences, in terms of black and white fact. However, it is one of the "impresice sciences" and the more you know about it, the more you can appreciate why the pro's and expersts get it wrong.

Couldnt agree more, it isnt an exact science.
Because of litigation concerns the highly skilled Senior Meteorologists at the B.O.M's hands are tied to using the inexact science more and more, rather than utilising their skills.
The B.O.M have 3 computer systems for evaluating weather forcasts.
2 of them have very similar programming and the 3rd is very radical in it's approach to forcasting.
They load data based over the previous years, the computer looks for a near match with current weather systems and then predicts what will happen based on those previous events.
If you can get 2 out of 3 to agree, thats pretty good, if you get 3 out of 3, thats even better... if none agree, the Senior Meteorologists get together and take a good gander and go, "I reckon thats the right one" and hopefully they pick it right. If they are not sure, they will err on the side of caution, this saves them standing up in a coroners court and saying I reached the conclusion by???? To my knowledge this is still how the forcasting is done.

In my opinion there job has gotten harder, not easier as aids to their forcasting has dissapeared such as Light House Keepers, compulsory reporting from larger vessels and of course the fear of being sued making them reticent to impart their true knowledge.
This coupled with forcasts only being updated a couple of times a day as opposed to 4 times a day previously, which I assume is a result of beuracratic cost cutting.
The above are only my opinions but i think that the B.O.M guys and girls do a pretty good job really, and cop a lot of flack as a result but have their hands tied to a certain extent. If you want truly bad forcasts, try living in NZ, I think they use 3 dart boards there, not 3 computers... well that was 10 years ago to be fair so hopefully they have improved.
Anyway, back to the course, if their is room, I will be there yet again Admiral.
Cheers Lloyd

[essky]

I would be interested. May give us some insight as to why they are wrong so often. Maybe we will see how complex predicting the weather is.

[moreton]

What a great idea. I have had the pleasure of sitting in on 2 of Ians weather courses before and am hanging out to sit through another one. I can guarantee that every one that attends will have greater understanding and knowledge on the subject.
Thanks in advance Pink Panther (Ian)
Regards
Moreton (Ian)

[2DKnBJ]

PP
Mate you can count me in on this.
The weather is only a prediction and if i could learn more on how to read a weather chart it may give me more time on the water.
Cheers Dazza

[McCod]

For sure.... I'm all ears [smiley=ears.gif] or maybe that should be eyes

Cheers Les

[Bazzmundi]

Great idea Pink Panther