Forecast calls for cold and warm.

On January 22, 1943 in Spearfish, SD: The temperature rose 49 degrees in two minutes, from – 4 to 45; later the same morning, it dropped 60 degrees in 27 minutes, from 56° to - 4°. Plate glass windows cracked as a result of the wild fluctuation in temperatures caused by Chinook winds. The greatest 24- hour U.S. temperature difference in one place was set January 23- 24, 1916, in Browning, MT, at 100 degrees when it went from a low of -56° to a high of 44°.*

Snow eating is one way it's been described, old tales too.. It's a seasonal wind, like the Mistral. There is some overlap in the definitions but the Chinook can safely be labeled a Foehn wind. A Foehn wind is "a generic term for warm strong and often very dry downslope wind(s) that descend in the lee of a mountain barrier". That is the one illustrated above. My favorite wind though, is the katabatic. A downhill wind. Cold and dense it blows here on Earth especially in the Antarctic, and there on Mars too. (page 9 of 14.) [more inside]
posted by vapidave on Dec 5, 2009 - 32 comments

CoCoRaHS - "Volunteers working together to measure precipitation across the nation." Sponsored by NWS, NOAA, and more... Volunteers Wanted (pdf)
posted by MrBCID on Nov 19, 2009 - 8 comments

It's snowing in China. Who's responsible? [more inside]
posted by up in the old hotel on Nov 14, 2009 - 25 comments

Mother Nature vs. Cars A local newspaper's dream come true. Cars in the aftermath of weather events.
posted by Ruthless Bunny on Aug 19, 2009 - 11 comments

Don't want to wait until bedtime (UK bedtime that is) to drift off to Sailing By (one of Jarvis Cocker's Desert Island Discs)? Well thanks to permanent bedtime you can listen to the BBC shipping forecast all day. Oh? What's that? It's no use because it's from months ago? Okay, here's the Met Office current data, and the listen again page on the beeb. Or test yourself: can you name all the weather areas?
posted by itsjustanalias on Jun 19, 2009 - 21 comments

Goths In Hot Weather
posted by fearfulsymmetry on Jun 11, 2009 - 119 comments

What's the Fucking Weather?
posted by chunking express on May 20, 2009 - 50 comments

On March 7, 2009, TornadoVideos.net (TVN) launched the beta version of their Live Streaming system. It's an interactive map that tracks each member of the TVN team as they criss-cross the country chasing storms, complete with live video. You can sign up (main page, top left: "Chase notifications") to be alerted when a chase is in progress. [more inside]
posted by nitsuj on Mar 25, 2009 - 8 comments

LiveNewsCameras.com ― international live streaming television news aggregator.
posted by netbros on Mar 19, 2009 - 9 comments

You Say You Want a Revolution -- "Despite some bravado, I myself was a cautious person looking to break the shackles of bourgeois detachment. I felt real relief in seemingly giving my all. But at the same time, I was terrified. Such existential 'acting out' does not ordinarily lead to political good sense. The importance of demonstrating revolutionary credentials or moral purity gets in the way of clear thinking about how to strengthen the movement or take advantage of political opportunities." Howard Machtinger, a founding member of the Weather Underground, provides a contemporary critique of his group's actions. [via]
posted by billysumday on Feb 19, 2009 - 19 comments

Cat wanders on stage during live weather broadcast. Judging from the reaction, this happens all the time in Germany.
posted by grapefruitmoon on Jan 13, 2009 - 80 comments

The Digital Snow Museum has all kinds of photographs and images of snow around the world. With an assortment of forecasting tools, weather maps, travel reports, info for skiers and snowboarders, a library and art gallery. Let It Snow. For those in the northern hemisphere, December 21st is the Winter Solstice, also known as Yule, the darkest day of the year. From this day until that of Midsummer, the days grow longer. Previously. [more inside]
posted by nickyskye on Dec 22, 2008 - 6 comments

Where did all the acorns go? With reports of acornless oaks coming in from all over the U.S., what is a squirrel to do? [more inside]
posted by afu on Dec 1, 2008 - 62 comments

Bunkers have a wide variety of uses in today's world. They're not all used by those fearful of a terrorist attack. They are also used to protect from natural disasters and to hide grow-ops. George's got one. Tom too. You can build you own, or have someone do it for you. The Ark Two Shelter is located just outside of Toronto. Tours of bunkers are also available. Be prepared. Previously.
posted by gman on Nov 6, 2008 - 13 comments

Weather History Offers Insight Into Global Warming. Weather History Offers Insight Into Global Warming. The problems that often haunt other weather records — the station is moved, buildings are constructed nearby or observers record data inconsistently — have not arisen here because so much of this place has been frozen in time. The weather has been taken (at Mohonk House, [map] ) in exactly the same place, in precisely the same way, by just a handful of the same dedicated people since Grover Cleveland was president... That extremely limited number of observers greatly enhances the reliability, and therefore the value, of the data. [more inside]
posted by KokuRyu on Sep 16, 2008 - 11 comments

Umbrella Today? tells you if you'll need an umbrella today. It will also text message your phone in the morning and warn you when you should bring an umbrella. (America only currently.)
posted by scottreynen on Sep 8, 2008 - 47 comments

Hurricane Tracker lets you see where the big Atlantic storms are, where they've been, and where they're projected to be.
posted by Dave Faris on Sep 4, 2008 - 32 comments

Hurricane Gustav is headed for landfall in Louisiana in the next 48 hours, with currently around an equal chance of being a category 3 storm or a category 4 storm. Gustav has 150 mph winds at the moment as it begins to enter the gulf of Mexico and a million people evacuate. After failing in their response to Hurricane Katrina three years ago, Fema is trying to be more proactive. Of course, some people are staying in harm's way, live blogging, and once again, there's the cry "bring it on". [more inside]
posted by cashman on Aug 30, 2008 - 235 comments

The Weather World 2010 project at UIUC began as a comprehensive meteorology tutorial designed for a high school/undergraduate level. It has since expanded to include guides to remote sensing and reading weather maps. (Some highlights include optical effects, severe storms, and the basics of weather forecasting.) For folks in the US, it also has current surface and satellite imagery for a number of different atmospheric properties.
posted by Upton O'Good on Jul 13, 2008 - 6 comments

It was called the Great Hurricane of 1938. The tradition of naming Cyclones had yet not begun, and not since 1869 had a storm of such ferocity hit the US mainland. What had made it unusally unique was the speed with which it had hit landfall, and the damage that it caused in its wake. (60 years on, and people can still recall the frightening grip that it had on their lives for those few days.)
posted by hadjiboy on Jul 12, 2008 - 20 comments

10 Rare Clouds. 20 Cool Clouds. NASA clouds. List of Cloud Types (wiki). previously
posted by swift on Jun 27, 2008 - 28 comments

WGN-TV's Tom Skilling is legendary Chicago weatherman with an equally famous brother. While Sam Zell's ownership of Tribune Corporation has ruffled the feathers of many, even a mefite, it's very clear who is running the company.
posted by timsteil on Jun 5, 2008 - 13 comments

The (U.S.) National Weather Service has released its report on a strong tornado that occured in Iowa the evening of May 25th. On the evening of May 25th, 2008 a tornado rated at EF5 (estimated wind speed was around 205 MPH!!) obliterated half of the town of Parkersburg, Iowa. Eight people have died, and 70 were injured. Here is a PDF containing incredible pictures of the damage (taken by employees of the NWS during their survey). [more inside]
posted by ArgentCorvid on Jun 4, 2008 - 36 comments

Undular Bore Waves
posted by geos on Oct 19, 2007 - 17 comments

Adopt a Vortex! Because nothing says "I love you" more than naming a European weather system after your special someone. Interestingly, lows are cheaper than highs. [via]
posted by patricio on Oct 18, 2007 - 14 comments

Mysterious ice circles are large rotating ice disks on ice covered rivers or other bodies of water. Their origin and nature is controversial. Perhaps they are related to UFO's or something more prosaic, like pancake ice.
posted by Tube on Oct 14, 2007 - 35 comments

"The storm carried twice as much dirt as was dug out of the earth to create the Panama Canal. The canal took seven years to dig; the storm lasted a single afternoon. More than 300,000 tons of Great Plains topsoil was airborne on that day."
Black Sunday. April 14, 1935. Timeline, Oral Histories (Kansas, Nebraska), Dust Bowl Movie (part I, part II), Black Sunday photos (1, 2, 3, 4). [previous dust on mefi: iraq, texas, africa, china]
posted by jessamyn on Aug 26, 2007 - 17 comments

The Climate Engineers. "Efforts to manipulate the climate and weather have a long history of exaggerated claims and beliefs, and a dangerous tendency to become militarized. Even if they succeed, who will control the global thermostat?" Public policy scholar James R. Fleming explores the issues in a Wilson Quarterly article.
posted by amyms on Jul 19, 2007 - 11 comments

Disaster at Sea!! A collection of dozens & dozens of photographs of misfortune striking those GIGANTIC shipping vessels, the kind that bring goods from China to Wal Mart. Every kind of affliction imaginable, from shipboard fire to heavy weather to grounding amidst crushing waves to capsizing from ill balanced loads to random explosive cargo to terrorist attack to so much more. Descriptions of the vessels and what brought them down are included in the first link.
posted by jonson on Jul 15, 2007 - 57 comments

Weather shock horror! Survivors live to tell the tale!
posted by Blazecock Pileon on Jul 12, 2007 - 11 comments

CycloneFilter : Super Cyclone Gonu prepares to slam into Oman. Cyclones this far north in the gulf are rare; doubly so for one so powerful. Latest readings have Gonu at Category 5 on the Saffir-Simpson scale. Some are worried about what this will do to oil prices.
posted by suckerpunch on Jun 4, 2007 - 25 comments

Weather warfare. [more inside]
posted by nickyskye on Apr 3, 2007 - 15 comments

Riddle: What has an eye on the bottom, and a hexagon on the top? [ answer inside ]
posted by (bb|[^b]{2}) on Mar 27, 2007 - 26 comments

It was a cold day on Mount Washington in New Hampshire today, where the weather can really suck. With a temperature of -37F and a peak wind gust of 117mph, it was cold enough to turn boiling water to snow (youtube). Also, previously on MeFi.
posted by SteveInMaine on Mar 6, 2007 - 60 comments

Paraglider survives 32,000ft fall. A German paragliding champion named Ewa Wisnierska was "sucked into a storm that pulled her higher than Mount Everest." She "soared skywards," and was soon "covered in ice" as she "battled hailstones the size of oranges," becoming one with the weather. "I could see the Earth coming," she later said, "wow, like Apollo 13 – I can see the Earth."
posted by BLDGBLOG on Feb 16, 2007 - 57 comments

How's the weather? Is it polluted? Do you have plenty of rainforests? Send someone a Geography Information Postcard and tell them about where you live by filling out infographics. (via)
posted by divabat on Jan 31, 2007 - 1 comment

The Alaska Pacific River Forecast Center provides massive amounts of NWS remote weather station data on precipitation statewide. With avalanche season about to begin, these data are extremely useful to both amateur recreationists and snow professionals.
posted by mistermoore on Nov 14, 2006 - 9 comments

Diverse rainbows, unicorns notably absent.
posted by longsleeves on Sep 28, 2006 - 12 comments

The clear sky clock (this one is for Boston) provides a graphical representation of seven factors that affect the clarity of stargazing: cloud cover, transparency, seeing, darkness, wind, humidity, and temperature. Once you've figured out where and when to go stargazing (probably somewhere rural) make a custom map for your location so you know what you're seeing.
posted by nekton on Sep 27, 2006 - 7 comments

Dealing a blow to meteorologists around the world, the nightly weather forecast at CBS 19, The Eye of East Texas, is delivered, in part, by a dog.
posted by punkfloyd on Sep 7, 2006 - 35 comments

There's a big storm in the pacific. They're calling it a Super Typhoon. It has winds of 160-185 miles per hour, and it's expected to completely submerge Wake Island. Happy Katrinaversary.
posted by 1-2punch on Aug 30, 2006 - 38 comments

The web moves in wonderful ways. Case in point, must see mashups WeatherBonk.com and SkiBonk.com . If you are ski freak or weather geek, you will really find these pages useful. There's even a golfbonk in beta, if you are into it!
posted by BrodieShadeTree on Aug 2, 2006 - 5 comments

The Source of Europe's Mild Climate
posted by Gyan on Jul 9, 2006 - 17 comments

Pull out a US $20 bill. Take a look at the picture of the White House. See that tree peeking in from the right, the 140 year old elm that's been there since Andrew Johnson? Well, it's gone. Yup. Fallen over, thanks to the soaker summer storms which have been hammering the Mid-Atlantic in recent days. Cleanup has started, but no word on whether the $20 bill will be needing another update.
posted by brownpau on Jun 26, 2006 - 38 comments

"The sky turned orange as the storm approached, until total darkness blanketed the ground." Sandstorms in Iraq -- caused by heating of the desert sand and a northwesterly summer wind known as the shamal -- can kill. (A similiar storm over Interstate 5 in California in 1991 caused a deadly 164-car pileup.) They can also be uncannily beautiful and dream-like when seen from a distance (WMP link).
posted by digaman on Jun 4, 2006 - 35 comments

Why not mashup Google maps and NOAA's digital forecast database? Enter a zip code, a city name, or just point and click on a map (continental US and Hawaii only, alas). A 5 day forecast will appear at the bottom of the screen (including some cheesy little pictures illustrating, like rain and fog, just in case you forget what they look like).
posted by jasper411 on May 18, 2006 - 21 comments

I didn't believe my eyes, but it turns out that it only takes some cold water and a thermal inversion to make a superior mirage (superior in both position and awesomeness). Pekka Parviainen has written about the phenomenon in Finland and has lots of photos to share. Still don't believe? Watch the videos: especially the one in which the mirage disappears before your very eyes! (.rm)
posted by imposster on May 11, 2006 - 23 comments

Mysterious Boom felt throughout Southern California this morning with no explanation. USGS claims there were no quakes, meteorologists claim nothing in the weather could have caused it, military bases are claiming that nothing they were doing would cause such a rumble, and air traffic controllers state that no supersonic flights were taking place in the area (no sonic boom). I was awoken by the shaking and the car alarms that followed. If it's none of the above, just what caused it?
posted by afx114 on Apr 4, 2006 - 119 comments

Missouri Skies: The show me state .
posted by hortense on Apr 2, 2006 - 18 comments

National Hurricane Center and the Likelihood of Hurricanes. In December 2003 the NHC predicted a 68% chance of a major (Category 3-4-5) hurricane hitting the US, in fact there were three major hits on the US (Charlie, Ivan, and Jeanne). In December 2004 the NHC predicted a 69% chance of a major hurricane, in fact there were four major hists (Dennis, Katrina, Rita, and Wilma). The odds of that happening are about 0.9% (see link for math), or "statistically very significant evidence" the NHC predictions are understated. Forecast for 2006: 81% chance of a major hurricane.
posted by stbalbach on Mar 15, 2006 - 34 comments