Lab
5 Research Planning
For
this lab, you must pretend you are doing the current weather for your case
study (if you already are doing it, you are ahead of the game). Much of the preliminary development of the
weather situation has already happened.
Nevertheless, for this exercise, start with what will happen from 00Z
tonight. You must devise a plan of what
information you want to present, where to find it, and when to download it.
This
is not a graded lab. I want you to write down your plan and I’ll look at
them. But this is essentially for YOU so
you will know what to do when you pick a case.
Example:
You should show surface maps. So write
down at what website you can find them (the entire URL). Also, make a schedule of when you will
download the surface maps from that website.
Use UTC for times. Don’t worry if
you want them overnight. Assume you will
be available for downloading 24/7.
Your
plan should have an entry like this:
Map URL Download
day/time
Surface www.wpc.ncep.noaa.gov/sfc/namussfcwbg.gif Every day, every 3 hours, at
2Z,
5Z, 8Z, 11Z, 14Z, 17Z, 20Z, 23Z.
Notice
I left 2 hours after map time for the WPC to actually put it online.
There
will be a lot of different types of maps, not just surface maps. Include analyses and forecasts. Of course, forecasts must be downloaded in
advance of the verifying time. Your plan shows the time when downloading will
take place. It is essentially a set of
instructions for yourself.
For
overnight downloading, assume the maps may be downloaded by my automatic
scheduler program which can be told to look for a certain map name, like
namussfcwbg.gif. It works best if the
map name is generic, so Feb18map.gif wouldn’t work after Feb 18. Try not to pick maps with dates or
timestamps. Text products are OK, even
desirable.
The
first thing to do is to describe the synoptic situation. This gives you the chance to think about what
maps and information will be important to download. So, in a snowstorm case,
your synoptic description leads inevitably to snow totals or even a snowfall
map. Find one now BEFORE your storm takes place.
Next,
look for what is interesting or different in your storm. Do you want to do a severe thunderstorm
case? You may want to download
soundings, severe weather outlooks, stability indices (like the Lifted Index),
etc. List everything you think you will
need to present a good case study and put them in your plan for downloads. You will also want to look for human interest
and/or local interest. Local can mean
your hometown-local.
You
are NOT to actually download maps for today’s sample case. Just make the plan and turn this in today
so I can look at them before Friday’s class.
How to actually do the case study
Here’s the assignment, from
the Syllabus:
Project (15% of course
grade): This is a term paper and presentation based on a research
project. You will choose a real-time case study. Planning for this
should begin immediately as your case could come up tomorrow. The case
studies will be done by two-person teams. You may pick your partner. To reserve
a date, ask me. The first team to request a date gets it. If the
weather for your date is a dud, you can request one other and that’s the one
you take (no third chances). You must prepare a written report and make
an oral presentation using Microsoft PowerPoint, scheduled for April 29. In the
written report, each team member must cover approximately half of the work and
you must show what each person wrote. For the oral report, each team member
must speak on what they researched. Based on how well you show individually
(through the oral and written parts) that you know the subject, the grades may
vary with team members. The written report and PowerPoint are both due
on April 27. Your overall project grade will be the average of the oral and
written grades.
Project Planning
1. What do you want to do
with your case?
a. Describe what happened
i. Meteorologically
ii. Human interest
b. Assess the forecasts of this event
i. Models
ii. NWS
iii. Other (Weather Channel?)
c. Analyze any aspect of meteorological interest
i. meteorologically
unusual?
ii. of local interest?
iii. extreme?
2. Decide what you would
want to show. Likely possibilities (you
could come up with more):
a. Surface maps
b. upper air maps
c. Radar
d. satellite
e. soundings
f. maps specific to the type of case, e.g., snowfall, precip, lake temperature, severe reports, etc.
g. forecasts
h. Data (if it shows something important to the case)
For example, this could be a list of the
daily observations
3. What you will do once
you have the downloads.
a. Go over the downloaded products to identify those
which are useful
b. Organize them to tell the story of your case
c. Write up the report at least one week before April 29.
Proofread it.
d. Create the PowerPoint at least one week before April
29. Practice the oral report