Yesterday we were talking about taking a walk down to the park. The sky was overcast and while it wasn't raining, the roads were still damp. Before heading out I asked Austin if he should bring a rain coat and that lead to a discussion about how to tell what the weather was likely to do (short term forecasting).
To start we took a look a the clouds. They were not high but not low either and were closer to white in colour than black. The clouds were also fairly featureless. Austin searched through our book on instant weather forecasting looking for cloud pictures that match what we were seeing. The closest we could find the page that describes Altostratus ahead of a warm front (though after more research when writing this post we discovered that we were probably actually looking at Nimbostratus). That page predicted deteriorating conditions in 2 - 4 hours if the clouds darkened and backed to the South or East (backing means to swing counter clockwise).
Austin also observed that there wasn't any observable wind over a 5 minute period.
We decided to eat a snack and wait a bit before making our final decision.
When it was time to go (about an hour later), Austin took a look at the clouds, felt for wind and decided that it was likely to rain while out because the clouds were darker (needed to turn on lights in the house) and there was now some wind and it was from the South-East (and he was right, it started to rain within the hour).
Great post, Skye. I'm not sure if you know that Austin has expressed increasing interest in weather systems? He seems to be gaining confidence in his ability to predict the weather. It's neat to see this awareness in him, when I don't have it in myself.
ReplyDeleteBecoming better predictors of weather will be invaluable for our sailing adventures.