Homework # 4 Solutions
1. What kind of weather is MWN (
I wound up not being clear enough in my question. Generally, weather conditions refer to the weather symbol given at the station. However, many people interpreted this question to include cloud conditions or to generalize the weather symbol (ie: from heavy rain to just rain). Since I was not as detailed as I could have been, I have accepted anything that is correct for this station and the following stations.
The specific answer was: Moderate Rain, but I took Overcast and Rain
2. What's the speed at MWN?
35 knots (3 long flags and a short flag)
3.What is the wind direction at MWN?
This is roughly out of the Southeast (SE)
4. What portion of the sky do clouds
cover at SFZ (
I took ½ or Scattered
5. How would you describe the cloud
cover at SFZ in one word?
In this particular case, I was looking for the phrase Scattered, which we
discussed in class.
6. What is the dewpoint
at SFZ?
This is on the lower left of the SFZ station plot and was 71 degrees
Fahrenheit.
7. Is the air saturated at SFZ?
To answer this, you had to look at the temperature at SFZ, which is on the
upper left of the station plot. Here, the
temperature was 71 degrees Fahrenheit and since this is the same as the dew
point, the air is saturated.
8. What sort of weather is over CON (
Specifically, I was looking for Heavy Thunderstorms, but I took anything
that accurately described what the station plot showed.
9. What is the sea level pressure at
AUG (
Again, this uses the usual pressure conversion we have used a few times
now. We were given 014. Therefore I can add a 10 and a decimal
between the 1 and 4 and the sea level pressure is 1001.4 millibars.
10. What type of weather is AUG
reporting?
Specifically, I wanted Light Rain, but I took Rain or any other statement
which accurately described what the station plot was showing.
11. What's the temperature at DDH in
southwestern
The temperature is located in the upper left section of the DDH station plot
and was 69 degrees Fahrenheit.
12. What is DDH's
sea level pressure?
This requires the same decoding as question 9. You were given 007, which takes a 10 in front and a decimal between the second 0 and the 7 to give a sea level pressure of 1000.7 millibars.
13-20. (8 points) Every hour, METARs are automatically transformed into surface plots at
each station. Now it's your turn to create a station plot from given METAR
data. The following METAR was taken from a station in Washington, DC, at 2116Z
on Monday Sept 24, 2001. There was a tornado nearby.
KDCA
242116Z 18016G21KT
6SM -TSRA BR SCT026CB BKN042 OVC085 24/22 A2975 RMK TORNADO B03 2SM W MOV E TORNADO E15
AO2 WSHFT 2056 TORNADO B03E14 OCNL LTGICCG W-NE TS
I gave you one free point because I did not type in the sea level pressure. Also, since I forgot to show you a tornado weather symbol, I accepted just about anything that looked right (mainly Thunderstorm, or Heavy Thunderstorm).
I was looking for Temperature (in Fahrenheit since this is a surface plot):
24/22 – 24 degrees Celsius is (1.8 * 24) + 32 = 75 degrees Fahrenheit
Dewpoint (also in Fahrenheit)
24/22 – 22 degrees Celsius is (1.8 * 22) + 32 = 72 degrees Fahrenheit
Station ID: KDCA
Cloud cover (use the cloud cover the covers the most amount of the sky): OVC085
Since it is overcast, you will completely fill in the station plot circle.
Wind Speed and Direction:
18016G21KT – The wind speed is rounded to the nearest 5 knots. Therefore, 16 knots will be plotted as 15 knots. This is given by 1 long flag and one short flag.
18016G21KT – The wind direction is given as 180 degrees and means that it is coming from out of the South (S).
Weather Symbol
TORNADO – As I said above, I
would take any symbol that was reasonable since I did not give you the tornado
symbol.
Each piece of information was worth one point. Therefore, from the above your plot should look like:
