WEATHER AND CLIMATE

"Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it."   Mark Twain

Updated March 2008

This is one of the best excuses for looking out of the window - which of course as Geographers we need no excuse to do. The changes in the weather, particularly the extremes of the seasons can be spectacular. A frosty morning gives the chance to illustrate sun path exposure; a windy day can be used to estimate Beaufort values; in the fog, try estimating visibility using fixed landmarks - the local college is a good one for me.

WEATHER LINKS

• To start with, try the Met Office's excellent site: METO. This now features excellent teachers' and students' notes sections. If you're going to be teaching a unit on weather, you need to go here first. This may be the only place you need to visit. Recommended.
• I also like the UK WEATHER INFORMATION SITE.
• ONLINE WEATHER (now Accuweather) explains weather symbols. The Geography department has a resource pack produced by the Met Office which has a weather forecast chart and reusable symbols which can be stuck on the chart to produce a weather chart. Pupils can be videoed performing their forecast. This could be one thing to try, as well as podcasts of the students' script for their forecast. Also could try to produce a personal forecast for particular members of staff or departments within the school.
• For forecasts of weather in various cities around the world, the best site for me is WUNDERGROUND. This allows you to search for particular countries using maps.

• There's now a UK based site called WEATHER ONLINE which has some rather useful information. It has weather data for lots of locations, as you'd expect, plus details on how the temperature has changed at lots of locations throughout the day, and a good clickable map which links through to climate information. Recommended.
• AIR MASSES AND FRONTS are cornerstones of weather study, and they're explained clearly at this site.
• Need weather data ? Based close to Hertfordshire, or want to contrast it with your own area ? In that case, go to the ROYSTON WEATHER DATA page, at Iceni.org.uk. This excellent collection of weather data has information on all the usual suspects for the last few years, and has features on the great drought of 1976 with details of temperatures over the period of the heat-wave. Well done to Richard Barker, and others involved in putting together the site. Also has some excellent photos of meteorological interest. Recommended.
• http://www.meteogroup.co.uk/ - new address for PA Weather Centre.
• There's also the personal site of Trevor Harley: http://www.personal.dundee.ac.uk/~taharley/britweather.htm
• Based in Staffordshire is the page of AMINGTON HEATH School which has some good resources on the collection of weather data.
• The BBC's WHAT IS WEATHER site, which has some useful materials at an appropriate level. There is a lot of useful stuff here. Check out the weather formats: http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/whatisweather/aboutweather/flash_menu.shtml Recommended.
• There's also a useful site at EURO NEWS, which has some good satellite images which cover Europe.
• The MAPE site has a good selection of resources, including a piece of work on DAYLENGTH which relates to climate and latitude. A useful helpful site for the activity is WORLD TIME.

• METCHECK is the home of global weather forecasts: there is a useful climate model, and plenty of other resources to use.

LESSON PLANS

1. Problems of traffic can be viewed at various places. For example, a visit to NORFOLK TRAFFIC site can show the areas where there are problems. Other traffic related sites can be a useful visit at times of bad weather to see the effects on people and traffic. Webcams can bring these remote locations into the classroom.

2. To help with the Year 8 ICT SoW there's now the BBC's SPORTING WEATHER forecasts available from the BBC Weather Site. Explore what the weather will be like for a number of key sporting fixtures and decide what it is you want to pack. Also a COASTAL forecast section for sailors etc.

3. An excellent place to visit is METLINK's AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 CLICKS. This has a series of activities which are based on external web links. Start by clicking on a range of areas of the site, and you will be able to explore a range of areas: EXPLORE the METLINK World, HOT and COLD (recording the temperature at different locations around the world), SAME LATITUDE, DIFFERENT TEMPERATURE ?, SAME COUNTRY, DIFFERENT TEMPERATURE ?, UK TEMPERATURE PAIRS, WEATHER CAMS etc. Students can work through a range of activities and there are some worksheets where they can work through a range of activities involving some websites. This would be good if an ICT room can be booked. Recommended

4. A whole teaching pack on Weather and Climate for Key Stage 3 is produced by MANCHESTER METROPOLITAN University. It's a 1.3Mb PDF download. Get on over there....

5. We have a pack produced by the Met Office for Primary pupils but which is handy for use with Key Stage 3 pupils too. It comes in a blue folder and contains 2 maps of the UK for TODAY and TOMORROW, and a set of re-usable stickers. They feature weather symbols and descriptions, and temperatures (although for some reason they're all even numbers, so you have to round up . . or down) They can be used in different ways. One method I use is to obtain an outline map from which ever source is appropriate, and project it onto a whiteboard (either OHT or Digital Projector depending on your resources....) and then the pupils produce a forecast.

6. A CANADIAN met office site has a useful pack on demonstrating HIGH and LOW pressure in an active way using hand and arm gestures. By rotating your hands and doing something active, pupils can explore HIGH and LOW pressure systems and the way that they interact with each other. Get those kinaesthetics out... Go HERE for more.

7.  SNOW page. All you need to know about the white stuff - not milk.

8. Got an Interactive Whiteboard or a Data Projector ? Head on over to Noel Jenkins' JUICY GEOGRAPHY site, and check out 'JUICY WEATHER ON THE IWB' - one of several excellent resources. This resource allows you to create forecasts by dragging symbols onto a selection of maps. It's rather good, and is Recommended. Also has a link to a Belgian meteorology site which offers very good graphic style synoptic charts.

9. Lovely clear animations at XCWEATHER. This has perhaps the best diagrams to use on an IWB.

10. Do you like clouds ? Have you got any good pictures of clouds ? Why not join the CLOUD APPRECIATION SOCIETY ?

A small financial sum will secure membership, which comes with a POSTER and free BADGE. There is a CLOUD GALLERY, and a Cloud of the Month... Check it out... I'm proud to be a member of the society. There are now over 12000 members.

11. COLD WEATHER RESOURCES

December 2005 saw some cold weather and snowfalls. As always, people generally failed to cope very well. Although major roads were gritted, minor roads weren't. My road always ices up and stays that way for days.

"Every mile is two in winter"

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4561728.stm - BBC NEWS STORIES

http://www.cambridgeshire.gov.uk/transport/roads/winter/ - information on gritting the roads and how it works as far as Cambridgeshire is concerned. Most local authorities would have similar action plans, and websites. Try to find your local authority information.

http://www.cambridgeshire.gov.uk/transport/roads/winter/gritting+routes.htm - for maps and posters relating to winter road maintenance

The Cambridgeshire site also offer a forecasting service which is rather useful. For example, here is the forecast for the 29th of December 2005: the day I added these resources:

For 24 hours beginning at 12:00 on 29/12/2005 Last Updated : 12/29/2005 03:14 PM

This data is relevant to the all Cambridgeshire Highway divisions:

The data set out above is, at the time of posting, deemed to be accurate but is subject to change as a result of sudden or unexpected variations in the forecast weather conditions. Gritting runs take up to four hours to complete and the time shown indicates the intended start of those runs. This information is given to help you assess road and weather conditions before any journeys are made or contemplated. It is imperative in bad weather conditions that every road user makes a very careful note of the local road conditions and acts accordingly.

Cambridgeshire County Council cannot be held responsible for any actions taken as a result of this information being published.

As you can see, a full gritting run was expected. If pupils are doing work in winter, this would be a useful basis for some work.

http://llansadwrn-wx.co.uk/watch/cdanica.html - has details of a plant called Ivy-leaved Scurvygrass. This is a halophytic plant: it tolerates salt better than others. There is a good image showing this plant growing in a long strip at the side of the roads. It grows here due to salt which is left in the area by winter gritting, and gets washed onto the verges. This would make a good starter image along with a picture of a gritting lorry.

http://www.york.gov.uk/roads/gritting.html - some useful maps of areas which are going to be gritted - could link to some OS map work relating to exam extracts of York that we have access to.

Could also consider an exercise looking at prioritising which roads can be gritted - could consider areas such as steep slopes which would also have to receive special treatment. This could be adapted to your own local area. Perhaps have a limit to the distance which can be gritted.

http://www.highways.gov.uk/traffic/traffic.aspx has traffic maps which are updated in real time. Worth checking before making a journey whatever the weather...

Image captured on December 29th 2005, showing GRITTING IN PROGRESS on the A1 (M) Southbound. Click to enlarge.

Heavy snow blocked roads on the 30th of December

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4568494.stm - is a BBC news story on this

13. WEATHER FASHION SHOW

A sheet here (WORD DOCUMENT) originally from Noel Jenkins where he asks the students to dress the characters for the weather as part of a sort of 'fashion show'. Could try actually dressing up, or creating clothing for paper dolls.  I like this idea. Develop it as you will, and make sure you give full credit to Noel !

15. THE GREAT STORM OF 1987

Could also produce a PHOTO STORY using FLICKR sourced images.

Also check out my SNOW page (mentioned earlier) for more on the white stuff...

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