Weather Maps

The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald - The Anniversary Storm: View weather maps that animate the conditions during a strong low-pressure system in November 1998. The storm took the same track as a storm 23 years earlier that was just as strong and resulted in the sinking of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald on Lake Superior. These animations illustrate how weather maps help meteorologists monitor dangerous storms. The evolution of sea level pressure and surface wind superimposed on an infrared satellite image of the storm shows its development over the Rocky Mountains and movement northeastward over Lake Superior. The sea level pressure and temperature animation shows air with varying temperature transported around the storm circulation by the wind. The dewpoint temperature changes throughout the storm and the precipitation patterns as measured by radar are also available.
Upper air weather maps and the 10-13 April 2001 cyclone: A strong cyclone developed over southeastern Colorado during the day on 10 April 2001. As the cyclone moved northeast across the Great Plains during the next 36 hours, severe thunderstorms erupted along both the cold and warm fronts, producing hazardous weather across much of the plains. In all, the National Weather Service’s Storm Prediction Center recorded 48 tornadoes, 213 reports of damage due to straight-line winds, and 201 hail reports. Although severe weather did not occur on 12 or 13 April, the cyclone continued to produce rain and strong winds in the northern United States and southern Canada.

Related Web Sites
Reading Weather Maps	Online guide to reading and interpreting weather maps and charts.
Station Weather Symbols	A collection of common weather symbols used in station reports.
Surface Data Details	Guide to decoding surface charts.