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Old July 25th 08, 11:06 PM posted to rec.aviation.piloting,alt.usenet.kooks
§ñühw¤£f[_2_]
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Posts: 41
Default How do weather services get sky conditions above the surface?

Bertie the Bunyip wrote:
§ñühwØ£f wrote in
news
On Fri, 25 Jul 2008 01:27:31 +0000, Bertie the Bunyip aided th'

terraists
with the following claims :

Mxsmanic wrote in
:

§ñühwØ£f writes:

I would a55ume that they have planes in the air at some point and

the
aircraft report the ceiling height of teh clouds and then they
estimate windspeed from observaton stations on the ground.
I'm just guessing. I knew a weather observer once.

That makes sense. I wonder how they estimate things like heights

and
distances, though. I suppose experience would help to come up

with
educated guesses for these, but one might still be way off.

Certainly
experience would be useful in recognizing specific cloud types and
patterns.

One article I read (I think it was Wikipedia) mentioned just ten
radiosondes for the entire Caribbean, that's hardly what I'd call
high-resolution measurement. You could almost fit a hurricane

between
radiosondes.


You are an idiot.

Bertie


Maybe they use dopplar radar to tell the height of the clouds, eh?
Otherwise I assume some sort of math involving triangulation and

other
difficult things.



Nah, it's easy. They compare the temperature to the dewpoint add in th
edry adiabatic lapse rate and voila, you get the cloudbase.
Observation
is used for terminal areas, otherwise, though, it's still done the old
fashioned way for the most part. These days, al info is mixed
together,
whihc gives a much better actual and forecasting capability.

bertie


Are you an ex weather observer or summat? I had a friend who was ex USAF
weather observer then he got a job in elko doing weather observation &
moved
He was always talking about clouds & stuff trying to explain what was
happening up there...