MetLink Activity 30 (Ages 14 to 18+ years)

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

Please note that this activity can be done on ANY DAY from Wednesday 8 February onwards because the links to resources are fixed. However, it will clearly have a greater immediacy if it is done while events are still fresh in the memory

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
Students will need an atlas and an outline map of the British Isles.

The activity:
1. Enter the weather observations made at your school or college weather station yesterday and today in a copy of the table below.

	Tuesday	Wednesday
Current temperature
Maximum temperature
Minimum temperature
Precipitation
Wind direction
Wind force
Pressure
Pressure trend
Cloud amount
Cloud types
Other weather features (comments)

A reminder: You can access your own school’s or college’s observations by going to the MetLink Home page.
Click Data central
Click Search observations data
Type your school or college 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

2. Describe how the weather has changed as shown by these observations.

3. Use Data central to search for some more pairs of observations from other MetLink participants in the UK. Try to find at least 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.

4. 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.

5. Show the observations of your three (or more) selected places and your own school or college on an outline map of Britain. Suggestion: Write the temperatures in a horizontal rectangle divided into three vertical sections. Show current temperature (at time of observation) in black, maximum in red and minimum in blue, thus:

5.1

9.1

4.4

Write the rainfall amount inside a blue circle. Use the Met Office weather key to show the other observations, including current precipitation.
To see this key, please click here.
To find out more about the cloud types, click here
Write a detailed description of the changes shown on your map in terms of both time and space.

6. Look at the satellite images captured over the British Isles yesterday and today by using the following links:

For yesterday’s infra red image click here
For yesterday’s visible image click here
For today’s infra red image click here
For today’s visible image click here

If you click on any of the images once they appear they will expand to high resolution, in other words become larger and more detailed.

Describe the main features of the clouds and their distribution for yesterday and today and comment on the changes which have taken place. As well as describing broad patterns, distributions and changes, also try to pick out some interesting minor features of the cloud which are clearly visible on some of the images.

7. Between 18:00UTC yesterday and 06:00UTC today, a belt of rain moved across the British Isles. To see the progress of this rain, click on each of the rainfall radar images listed here:

Time (7 February) 12:00
Time (7 February) 18:00
Time (7 February) 21:00
Time (8 February) 00:00
Time (8 February) 03:00
Time (8 February) 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 progress of the rain across the British Isles.

8. To explain the marked changes which have occurred in the weather of the British Isles during yesterday and today you need to the weather charts for Europe:

To see the 12:00UTC chart for yesterday click here
To see the 18:00UTC chart for yesterday click here
To see the 00:00UTC chart for today click here.
To see the 06:00UTC chart for today click here.

Once again, if you click on any of the images once they appear then they will expand to high resolution.

Relate the changes in the weather to the movements of frontal systems and changes in pressure systems over the period, as shown by the weather charts.

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. To see Birmingham Selly Oak’s weather observations, click here.