Meteorologists are scientists who use scientific principles to study the atmosphere and its many changes. According to National Geographic, meteorologists observe, explain, and forecast the weather. Their research mainly focuses on atmospheric research or operational weather forecasting.
Likewise, meteorologists at NOAA's National Weather Service use different tools to monitor the conditions of the atmosphere that might affect the weather. These technologies have advanced over the years and become more efficient to collect and use data.
Here are six tools that meteorologists of NOAA's National Weather Service use to forecast the weather.
Automated surface-observing systems
For years, weather conditions were manually observed and recorded each hour. That changed in the 1990s when Automated Surface Observing Systems were deployed nationwide. Learn more at: https://t.co/2iNwbTQg3C. #NWS150 pic.twitter.com/Ln2olAWraO
— National Weather Service (@NWS) October 15, 2019
The Automated Surface Observing Systems (ASOS) is a joint initiative of the National Weather Service (NWS), the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), and the Department of Defense (DOD). It serves as the primary surface weather observing network of the US with over 900 stations across the country.
ASOS is designed to report data about the sky conditions, surface visibility, precipitation, temperature, and wind. It is designed to support weather forecast activities and aviation operations.
AWIPS
When it's close to zero and snowing. Run everything at once! Running #McIDAS, #AWIPS, #Goestools, #Gpredict, #SDRsharp, #Goesmonitor, #influxdb, #Grafana, #Chrome, #PuTTY, and more in the background. #hobbies pic.twitter.com/5qkvwG0YUz
— Carl Reinemann - USRadioguy (@carlreinemann) January 25, 2021
NOAA's Advanced Weather Information Processing System (AWIPS) is a technologically advanced computer processing system that integrates all meteorological and hydrological data with satellite and radar imagery that the forecasters use to analyze data, and prepare and issue weather forecasts. AWIPS generates weather graphics and hazardous weather watches and warnings after meteorologists prepare the forecasts.
Doppler Radar
Weather Satellites monitor the Earth's atmosphere from space by collecting observation data that scientists then analyze. It plays an important role for all scales of the National Weather Service forecasting operations. Satellite data complements the data from land-based systems, like the weather radars, radiosondes, and surface observing systems.
NOAA uses three different weather satellites. The deep-space satellites monitor the powerful solar storms and space weather, while the geostationary satellites take images of the entire Earth every 30 seconds, and the polar-orbiting satellites take six or seven detailed images a day.
Check out more news and information on Weather on Science Times.
