Weather observation assignment - Science

Daily Weather Observations:

As a part of the meteorology unit I will expect you all to make DAILY weather observations. These observations should be done

· At the same time each day

· Using the same information gathering source

The purpose of this exercise will be to be able to start forecasting weather for the local area. To do this you will use meteorological instrumentation AND your own observations of the natural world. Therefore, this exercise will be more easily completed if you are NOT doing it at midnight every night.

I have no preference if you want do handwrite this in a notebook, or if you want to type this or put it on an excel spreadsheet – whatever works for you. The website I recommend using would be

https://www.wunderground.com/us/mn/minneapolis

REMEMBER that most data is collected at such places as regional airports – so if you are looking at Minneapolis data and you live in Brooklyn Center your data (official) will probably be from Bloomington (the airport) and your observations will be from Brooklyn Center.

Pretend that you are in Minneapolis. Starting from March 1st to March 28th

Every day you need to record the:

Date:

Time:

Wind:

Visibility:

Temperature (both air and dewpoint)

Relative Humidity

Air pressure in inches

Wind chill or heat index

And any precipitation (and what type)

PLUS you need to make personal observations – these can include what the sky looks like (cloudy, clear, what types of clouds, how many, if the wind is blowing, what direction, how strong (relatively speaking) how it “feels” out and anything else you can think of….)

This looks like a lot – but trust me it won’t take you that long.

At the end of each week graph your data. You can do it on separate graphs – Make a graph for temperature, barometric pressure, humidity, and wind speed. Do you notice any apparent correlations between the events? What are they? Or conversely what aren’t they?

You will be doing this for the ENTIRE length of the unit – so you should be able to complete 28 days of data and four sets of graphs.

Total 50 points

Daily Observations – 1 point a day – 21 total

Graphs 6 points a week – 18 total

Correlation between observations and graphs –3 points a week – 9 points total.

Name on paper – 2points

Assignment total – 50 points