Title. Ideally for free. Currently in university, studying maths and CS, for reference.
I'm not looking to get into the meteorology field, but I'm just naturally interested in being able to interpret graphs/figures and understand various phenomena and such. For example: understanding why Europe is much warmer than Canada despite being further up north, understanding surface pressure charts, understanding meteorological phenomena like El niño etc.
Hi all, I'm going to sticky this post, so that newcomers can get access to important entry level info easily. Please keep posting here.
Comet is the best place to start
https://www.meted.ucar.edu/education_training
How do you compare this to NOAA's jetstream in terms of depth and the type of content?
It's always a good idea to take your local NWS office's free SKYWARN weather spotter training. It's basic but good information. You can take the generalized national online course, but the local courses are ideal. My local office offers both online and in-person courses in the spring every year. The meteorologist who taught ours was great and happy to answer questions.
I lead a lot of outdoor events for youth, primarily scouts and their families, and I want to shore up my ability to read the current conditions. This is probably the best source for that, right?
It would be a great start, and the meteorologist would probably be happy to guide you to further learning.
Agreed, I just did this in February. You get to meet some cool people there as well. Here is the link to the suggested reading for the SYWARN course that I used:
LINK: https://www.weather.gov/media/bis/Weather_Spotter_Field_Guide.pdf
Theweatherprediction.com aka Habys hints.
https://www.coursera.org/learn/our-earth
One important skill to have that's rarely mentioned is the ability to read and understand Topographic charts/maps. If you can follow the line patterns and see slope, mountains, valleys, and so on, this will directly help you understanding weather charts. Many, many weather activities are envisioned by the slope - steep or shallow - of the weather system pressure gradient, thickness, temperature, or humidity features. When you can see the evidence of a mechanism in action, you can understand the mechanism much more easily. Enjoy!
P.S. Plus, you can then correlate how the underlying topography affects the system as well!
Yeah just start absorbing info online and you can watch Tim Vasquez and conduit ag weather vids on YouTube follow along so you can learn while they are actively forecasting in real time! Plus they are great teachers. Convective chronicles once you start learning some stuff! Comet meted great courses have a meteorological section. Books tons of um out there
I started with this and it is not bad https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCewapt2D7PsD6fL3KkNInBYCQHLZuGoM
For introductory chart/map interpretation, along with severe weather focused content, can’t beat this YouTube channel
Comet MetEd like another commenter stated is excellent
I haven’t used this myself but I’ve heard good things about this free Harvard edX course
https://www.theweatherprediction.com/
I’ve been using chat GPT a lot. I take my local NWS office forecast discussion. Then put it through chat gpt and ask all sorts of questions.
Comet
Any info on CANWARN and how to join it?