Meteorology 302.01, Spring 2004
Class notes for May 7, 2004

Jennifer Lee



Please let me know you got this e-mail

Assignments

 Vasquez: Chp 3, pp. 61-67; Chp 5; Chp 6, 128-139 (this completes Vasquez


House keeping

á Quick review of the dates for the final. Dates can be see on the  class website for our class it will be Wednesday 19th of May from  12:10 to 1:00pm


How to use forecast information and chaos theory

Under spiffy forecasts  (NCEP & HPC loop page) we looked to the  dates of when Dr.     Monteverdi is going out to the great plains
                ( Note that these models are not as technical as European models  because this information if free to the public, while in Europe they  might have to pay for the same information we get )
Looked at this mornings jet stream and the Loop: 500mb forecast
            These models as taken at six hour intervals
            We went over the Chaos Theory    (Greater error happens over 2 to 3 day periods)

Spaghetti chart
            * the orange colors represent the last annalists

            * the red colors represent the error or deviations that may occur
            * the deviations and the last analysis are most predictable when the  lines (the MB) are close together

Single and multi-cell storms

á Horizontal wind sheer the change in winds when you move horizontally
á Vertical wind sheer the change in winds when you move vertically
á Down drifts and cold air cools the ground thus it does not allow  thunderstorms to grow and eventually kills them
á Multi-cell storms are created by great vertical wind sheer
á Multi cells have larger hail because the updraft allows hail time to  grow
á In multi cell storms that drift toward the north east can have  several updrafts though one storm may die of another maybe closely  behind it
á The chief danger areas of thunderstorms are area that have high  winds and rain because several storms could grow and die around the  facility
á New Vocabulary Overshooting Top this can be seen when a updraft over  shoots a cuminbus cloud up and above its anvil thus its name, over  shooting top
á A super cell thunderstorm can be reportedly up to 100 miles long  with winds up to 100 knots
á Our storm are usually 10miles in diameter
á We can usually use the speed of updraft to calculate the size of hail