Meteorology 1111, Fall 2002
Due: 9/23 at beginning of class
Complete these questions to be handed in at the beginning of the
next class period. Please staple pages together if necessary. You will find
most of the answers in the lecture notes.
1. Over the past three hours, a tipping bucket with a .01 inch cup tipped 260 times. What is the average hourly rainfall rate in inches per hour?
2. If the Sear's Tower (which stands 1,353 feet tall) was the only building in Chicago, what's the minimum distance (in feet) from it that an anemometer can be placed in order to get an accurate measurement of the wind?
3. What is the most common type of anemometer in use, according to the notes?
4. What are 4 of the 5 advantages that make the thermoelectric thermometer (and other instruments) good to use in automated weather stations?
5. What are the four major air masses that control the USA's weather?
6. List the locations where the four major air masses originate.
7. What makes the cup anemometer inaccurate in gusty wind conditions?
8. At a weather station, to ensure that a shadow from the tower never falls on a solar panel (which measures the sun's energy that hits the ground), the solar panel must be located on which side of the tower (north, south, east, or west)as long as you are at a latitude above 23.5°N? (Hint: Look over the information concerning the equinox and solstice in the reading.)
9. What does ASOS stand for?
In class, we briefly mentioned the Oklahoma Mesonet. For the next question (and for some interesting reading on the Mesonet) use the following website. http://okmesonet.ocs.ou.edu/overview/
10. What is a brief definition of "Mesonet"?