Author Topic: online weather maps that show current position and area of air masses ove the US  (Read 1272 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline p3aul

  • Member
  • *
  • Posts: 25
Please forgive me if I have posted this in the wrong forum It didn't seem a good fit anywhere.

I know that the fronts depict portions of the boundaries of the air masses  and how to determine which side of the front is colder or warmer but the whole airmass is not shown and neither is what type it is ie Mt, Mp, Cp...etc. Does anyone know if anyone produces such a map.

Thanks,
Paul

Offline CW2274

  • Forecaster
  • *****
  • Posts: 6731
    • Conditions @ CW2274 West Tucson-Painted Hills Ranch
Don't even know if there is such a thing. If you have an educated/working knowledge of satellite pics and loops, especially WV and IR, you can get a pretty good idea what associated air mass you're looking at.

Offline p3aul

  • Member
  • *
  • Posts: 25
I don't have an educated or working knowledge of meteorology at all. Only what I have been self taught because it interests me greatly.  I don't see that as a barrier to understanding and being able to follow satellite maps. Every discipline has buzzwords, acronyms, and initials. I understand that. I know what IR is and WV is.

It just seems to me since air masses are so important in determining the weather there should be maps showing them or some simple way of plotting them.

I don't have a degree in meteorology but if that is what is required here maybe I better look elsewhere.

Offline gwwilk

  • Southeast Lincoln Weather
  • Forecaster
  • *****
  • Posts: 2578
    • SouthEast Lincoln, NE Weather
The NWS WPC has 'analysis' maps that include a current map or two or so that may be what you're looking for.  There are many, many views available some of which I've included on this page.  They are looped here.
Regards, Jerry Wilkins
gwwilk@gmail.com

Offline CW2274

  • Forecaster
  • *****
  • Posts: 6731
    • Conditions @ CW2274 West Tucson-Painted Hills Ranch
I don't have an educated or working knowledge of meteorology at all. Only what I have been self taught because it interests me greatly.  I don't see that as a barrier to understanding and being able to follow satellite maps.
Evidently a poor choice of my words on my part. I am completely self taught myself, as I've had a love of the weather as long as I remember and was merely trying to convey that the same could be for you. With that, I'm dubious if you'll find exactly what your looking for.

Offline p3aul

  • Member
  • *
  • Posts: 25
Thanks for posting. I'm afraid that cw2274 may be right. It looks like the air masses are required reading but don't matter much in these days of computer models.

I wonder what relation the Highs and lows have to the air masses? Are they in turn Hot or cold; Wet or dry? Do they occupy the same space as the air masses or just randomly distributed?

I think I read in a small paperback book back in the `60s called the "Golden Book of Weather" that the isobars that are drawn on a weather map representing the Highs and Lows are like the Topographical lines that depict hills and and valleys on a surface map of the terrain.

Offline zenforic

  • Member
  • *
  • Posts: 5
I hope I properly understood what you were looking for, as you highly likely know already we have the forecast maps on weather.gov that show the areas of high and low pressure as you mention, sure. But you say you want to look at the air masses as well, well there does exist a public frequently updated animation loopable satellite imagery site from NOAA, which is imaged from their satellites called GOES East (newer) and GOES West.

If you visit https://www.star.nesdis.noaa.gov/GOES/index.php you will find the aforementioned site, from which you can select a region on the map or on the left, cover multiple regions (hovering over will highlight bigger portions of the map if it covers more). Once selected, you can select the band at which you wish to view the imagery, in this case for airmasses we are interested in IR and WV. Now if you don't know how to read it, under the imagery (on the animation loop page in my experience), you will find a short description of how it can be read, as well as a link to a much more detailed PDF guide on how to read air masses from that imagery. As an example here is the last 48 images from GOES East with CONUS being the view range, animated, with the aforementioned guidance below it, in RGB Composited IR and WV: https://www.star.nesdis.noaa.gov/GOES/conus_band.php?sat=G16&band=AirMass&length=48

Apologies if you already knew about this, just thought I'd throw it out there.