Weather Briefing Tips

Covered here is a short 10-minute briefing on local weather.

Under construction.

Short (10-minute) Briefings on Local Vancouver Weather 

Please present topics in the following order. We also suggest web sites you could use to get the maps you show. For an efficient briefing, put each map or movie or other links in separate tabs of your web browser. That way, you can just click on a tap to instantly go to that map.

1. Special Weather Event of your choosing. (For example, hurricane, thunderstorm, snow in Whistler, etc. But make it brief -- just a few slides.)
2. Current fronts, either over all of North America, or for the weather over the Pacific that is approaching BC.
   • North American observations and fronts (zoomable), from the US Weather Prediction Center
   • North-east Pacific observations and fronts. from the US Ocean Prediction Center
3. Current satellite image, or a current satellite loop over most of North America and the northwestern Pacific Ocean. Or a big-picture focus on weather approaching BC from over the Pacific. Any one of:
   • Zoom Earth / Satellite / Live / zoomable
   • Worldview , from polar-orbiting satellites. (if needed, click the left arrow near the bottom left of the image.)
   • rammb-slider , from GOES-18 (west) satellite.
   • SSEC, combines GOES east & west satellites. (not zoomable, but has a nice loop)
4. Jet Stream, isotachs on the 25 kPa chart for all of North America, current and future. Any one of:
   • Earth NullSchool / 250 hPa
   • Tropical Tidbits / Forecast Models / Global model = ECMWF / Region = North America / Upper Dynamics / 250 mb Wind
   • Pivotal Weather / Models / ECMWF-Hi-Res / Zoom Continental North America / Upper-air / 300 mb Height Wind
   • xx
5. Height Anomalies at 50 kPa, current and future. Any one of:
   • Tropical Tidbits / Forecast Models / Global model = ECMWF / Region = North America / Upper Dynamics / 500 mb Height Anomaly
   • Pivotal Weather / Models / ECMWF-Hi-Res / Zoom Continental North America / Upper-air / 500 mb Height Anomaly
   • xx
6. Regional surface analysis & forecast weather for western Canada. Any one or two of
   • 2 m Temperature
   • 2 m Relative Humidity
   • 10 m Wind speed
   • Precipitation
7. Weather Radar (if precipitation is relevant to the local forecast). Any one of:
   • Univ. of Washington radar composite for the Pacific Northwest
   • ECCC radar composite
   • US NWS radar composite
8. UBC rooftop meteogram, and your own 2-day forecast for UBC, with an extended outlook for the coming week.
   • UBC ESB-rooftop camera images (if relevant)
   • meteograms of 7-day forecasts for UBC

As a sample, the Aside shows a reduced scale weather briefing, with the 8 items listed above.

Rubric for Evaluation of Weather Briefings by Other Students

Get the Rubric pdf file here .