Observations

General

Note: These sites have tons of stuff and therefore defy traditional sorting, but they are GREAT sites

• National Weather Service homepage
• UCAR RAP (includes surface, upper air, radar, satellite, and a forecasting tool)
• Plymouth State Weather Center (surface, upper air, radar, satellite, models, tropical weather, and a data archive, with great “make your own” tools for each)
• MeteoStar (surface, upper air, radar, satellite, models, volcanic ash advisories… tons of stuff)
• University of Quebec at Montreal MeteoCentre (surface, upper air, satellite and radar throughout North America and Europe, models, lightning, and more)
• Unisys Weather (surface, upper air, radar, satellite, and various models)
• University of Wisconsin-Madison (observations, radar, satellite, etc., but I mainly use it for their models)

 

Surface

• UW Links – almost everything you need is here (surface and upper air). I’ve reposted some particularly useful links.
  • Surface Observation Plotting Tool
  • Decoded Surface Observations Tool
  • Washington State Ferry Weather
  • Northwest Pressure Gradients
  • Washington Surface Observations
    • Also check out the “regional surface weather maps” on the UW page for surface weather maps throughout Western Canada and the Western U.S.
  • National Surface Observations:    Max Temp, Min Temp, 24 hr Precip
• MeteoStar Pressure Gradients Meteogram
  • Link shows KPDX – KBLI (Portland to Bellingham), but you can use the tool to find different gradients as you please (use the Northwest Pressure Gradients link to find common gradients used)
• Observation networks
  • CoCoRaHS
  • MesoWest
  • The Canadian Government (it’s fun to see how cold it is)
  • KING5 SchoolNet Observations for Western Washington
  • NWAC Mountain Weather Stations
  • National Data Buoy Center (NDBC)
• Skunk Bay Weather
• Transportation Info
  • Washington State Traveler Information
  • I-90 Traveler Information
  • US-2 Traveler Information

Upper Air

• UW Links – again – I’ve reposted my favorite links but you’ll find all this and more at the UW atmospheric sciences website
  • Sand Point Profiler
    • Hourly virtual temperature soundings   most recent  previous
    • Daily virtual temperature soundings   most recent  previous
    • 2 km time-height wind/temperature cross section   most recent previous
  • Nationwide Upper Level Maps:    200 hPa, 300 hPa, 500 hPa, 700 hPa, 850 hPa
• Soundings
  • Soundings from all over the U.S. (SPC)
  • Soundings all over North America (University of Wyoming)
• SODAR and LIDAR Profilers
  • PSD Profiler Data from the ESRL