WEATHER BLOG #7

FRIDAY

Yesterday I really wanted to study the maps of the weather; unfortunately, I was at work from 8-7 and didn’t have Internet access to get any maps. The weather was really interesting and I would like to try and get access to some maps from yesterday to see why the weather was the way it was. The morning was cloudy and cold, and then the clouds started to clear-I noticed that it looked like a combination of stratus clouds and cumulus clouds. Around noon the sun started to peak out and by the time the sun went down we had almost 100% clear skies. The thing that I don’t understand, and would like to know what type of conditions causes this, is that we had precipitation multiple times throughout the day. The temperature was really cold, which leads me to believe we had northwest winds, which would carry down air from the continental polar air mass.

SATURDAY

Today it looks like it is nice and warm because it is sunny and we have only about a 20% cloud cover of really light STRATUS??? Clouds. However, it is very chilly with winds coming from the northwest at about 20 mph.

This map shows that we have clear skies and winds coming from the northwest. It also shows that Eau Claire is located in some ridges that have formed-the perfect way for winds coming from the continental polar air mass to travel in. There are no clouds to the northwest direction of Eau Claire, which leads me to believe that the sky will stay relatively clear all day. This means that the temperature tonight  and tomorrow morning will be very cold because the clouds wont be in the sky to keep any warm air in.

ELSEWHERE IN THE COUNTRY

There is a stable front and a low-pressure system located over the rocky mountains-this is most likely because of an effect that the Rocky Mountains is having on the way the weather can travel.

OBSERVATION

Since I am still new to weather and don’t know much about predicting it yet, I wanted to pull a surface map from last week to compare what it looks like when the weather is warm, compared to what a map of today looks like when the temperature is very cold. I noticed that when it was warm we did not have these deep ridges cutting through the center of the country from the continental polar air mass area down to Texas. This leads me to believe that it is these ridges, which will allow the cold air to easily be transported down through Canada and the United States.  Assuming I am correct, this observation will allow me to look at 24-hour surface maps and be able to predict whether it will be warm or cold.

WARM WEATHER SURFACE MAP

COLD WEATHER SURFACE MAP