MetLink Activity 29 (Ages 7 to 14 years)

Major changes in weather over the British Isles in 24 hours from Tuesday 7 to Wednesday 8 February 2006

+Teachers will probably wish to select from the questions and adapt some of them according to the age of the children.

+ This activity can be done on ANY DAY from Wednesday 8 February onwards because the links to resources are fixed. However, Question 1, which requires the use of memory, clearly needs to be done as soon as possible.

The aims of this activity are:
+ to use ICT skills in finding information
+ to use mapping and graphical skills in presenting information, making use of standard weather mapping symbols
+ to describe weather conditions and how they change with time and location.
Pupils will need an atlas and an outline map of the British Isles.

The activity:

1. Think of words to describe the weather yesterday (Tuesday) and today (Wednesday) and then put them into a table like this:

	Tuesday	Wednesday
Temperature
Precipitation
Wind direction
Wind force
Cloud amount
Cloud types
Other weather features

2. Describe in sentences how the weather has changed.

3. Write the weather observations made at your school weather station yesterday and today in another table like the one above.
You can find your own school’s observations by going to the MetLink Home page.

Click Data central
Click Search observations data
Type your school name in Name contains
Set the Country drop-down menu to UK – United Kingdom
Set the From date as 7 February and the To date as 8 February
Click on Search now

4. Describe in sentences how the weather has changed according to these observations.

5. Use data central to search for some more pairs of observations from other MetLink participants in the UK. Try to find one set of observations in each of these areas:

Scotland
The North of England
The English Midlands
The South of England

Try to select ones which have a full set of observations and if possible also have some interesting comments.

6. Find where the places are using an atlas. You can find the address of the places by clicking on the name of the participant.
To start a new search you will need to go via Data central again.

7. Show the observations of your three pairs and your own school on an outline map of Britain. Write the temperature reading in red and the rainfall total in blue. Use the Met Office weather key to show the other observations.

To see this key, please click here.
To find out more about the cloud types, click here

Discuss what your map shows you about the weather changes. Write this down in sentences.

8. Look at the satellite photos taken of Britain from high above the earth yesterday (click here) and today (click here). When the image appears, click on it to make it larger and clearer. The clouds show up white on the image. Land and sea surfaces look dark grey or black. What do you notice about the cloud today compared with the cloud yesterday? Try to name different parts of the UK and use words like north and south in your description.

9. Between 12:00UTC yesterday and 06:00UTC today a belt of rain moved across the British Isles. To see the journey of this rain, click on each of the rainfall radar images listed here:

Time 12:00
Time 18:00
Time 21:00
Time 00:00
Time 03:00
Time 06:00

To see a key for the radar colours, click here. This will also show you the latest rainfall radar image for the British Isles. Describe the journey of the rain across the British Isles. Again try to mention areas, places and use words like north and south.

10. A. The changes in the weather were caused by what is called a cold front. A cold front marks the edge of mass of cold air moving forwards. Along the line of the cold front there is often a lot of cloud and rain.

Look at the weather map for 12:00UTC yesterday by clicking here. The map looks very complicated but all that you need look for is the British Isles and the cold front which is shown by a bold black line with triangles (“dragon’s teeth”) pointing in the direction the cold front was heading.

Where in Britain was the cold front at 12:00UTC yesterday and in which direction was it heading?

Compare the position of the cold front with the rainfall radar image for 12:00UTC yesterday and say what you notice.

Repeat this for the 00:00UTC weather map by clicking here.
Repeat this for the 06:00UTC weather map by clicking here.

10.B. Try to think of three main changes that happened to the weather as the cold front moved across the UK.

Weather photos:

To see how different the weather was this morning compared with yesterday morning in Birmingham, click here. To move on through the images, click on the photo on the right of the small pair beside the main picture. You can see all of the photos set out in pairs by clicking on the name Birmingham Selly Oak Weather in the top right corner of the photo page. You might like to write something about what the photos show.