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A List of Learning Resources

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Tim Vasquez created post #87 in the "Where is Stormtrack really headed and what does it need?" thread. One of his thoughts for going forward was renaming the Beginner Forum to the Educational Forum and adding a FAQ List to that section.

I would make an appeal to the general membership to submit what you think is the best of the best: book, document, or video that could be used by a newer member to help them with their storm related education. I feel we need to create a “requiredâ€￾ reading list and make it understood that if a new member studied these six, seven or eight documents, he would not be an expert, but would be well on his way to understanding the process that creates storms and could begin to make posts with some confidence of his knowledge. Just as importantly, he would be able to confidently use his or her new knowledge to forecast a proper target area while staying safe. We all know that none of this would be guaranteed, but it would provide a good basic background.

Many of us have made the statement advising someone to hit the books for knowledge, but for someone just starting out and wanting to become a good ST member, where do they really begin? I’m not looking for something that gives away your personal hard-earned secrets, but rather what you feel is truly worthwhile for helping the novice. Novice being the key word in the last sentence. This isn’t intended to be an open their head and dump in the information process. Work would be required on their part to achieve the desired result.

Tim’s Storm Chasing Handbook and Weather Forecasting Handbook are good, but I am certain there are others that would supplement and enhance those two from a beginner’s viewpoint. If we can create such a list, we could probably get it added to the FAQ section which would help the new person and at the same time, we would be helping ourselves.

Thanks for your offerings,
TANK
 
Should this be posted under the "Where is Stormtrack really headed?" thread?
Just wondering...this way we do not get 2, 3 or even more threads dealing with the same subject. Mods???
 
Lanny,
I thought about that for a long, long time and finally decided that I really didn't want it to get lost after a day or two in among all of the other posts within the original thread.

However, if you feel strongly, I'm guessing the mods would be happy to accommodate a move. I truly think this list could become an important asset to raise our level of posts which was a significant portion of the original war of words.
Thanks for the thought,
TANK
 
Even though a couple of links herein aren't working, I found this to be a great 'must read' starting point:
http://www.stormtrack.org/library/faq/

I believe Tim in some other thread mentioned he had started an effort to redo the library. I know I have redone a lot of it myself, for putting on my website later (not uploaded). I'll see what he's done (if any) and then add mine if needed/appropriate.
 
MOD NOTE: I'm going to leave this as a separate thread. This is a more specific subject on content for a new section rather than the previous thread, which is a more general discussion of the entire forum.

This could potentially be a great resource for those "quick links" for learning. I don't want it to buried in the other thread.
 
Storm Structure 101, put together by Mike Hollingshead, is a good introduction to the basics of storm structure and storm environment.

Josh
 
Weather Maps: How to Read and Interpret All the Basic Weather Charts by Peter R. Chaston is an outstanding text. It's easy to understand and does a great job of integrating the use of essential maps with the meteorology behind them.

Available from Chaston Scientific, Inc., Kearney, MO. ISBN 0-9645172-4-8.
 
Weather Maps: How to Read and Interpret All the Basic Weather Charts by Peter R. Chaston is an outstanding text. It's easy to understand and does a great job of integrating the use of essential maps with the meteorology behind them.

Available from Chaston Scientific, Inc., Kearney, MO. ISBN 0-9645172-4-8.

I do wish the Chaston Book would get a revision....kinda getting long in the tooth on that one...but still a good start for someone advancing past the 'skywarn' stage.
 
Stormtrack, The Ultimate Collection

I want to add “STORMTRACK, The Ultimate Collection 1977-2001â€￾ CD to the list of outstanding educational material that has been offered by other members so far.

For those that may not be aware, Stormtrack was originally a bimonthly publication started in 1977 by a small group of dedicated folks who were enthused about watching severe weather and wanted to offer their experiences and growing knowledge to others in the fledgling hobby. The Stormtrack CD is a scanned PDF file containing every issue that was published with all of the photographs and graphics. Don’t be fooled into thinking this is simply an old history book and you need the ‘latest’ information. While many refinements have been made, the basic knowledge and principles are still the same.

Three of the major extras that come with the CD are: Storm Chase Manual by Tim Marshall; Tornado Forecasters Workbook by Tim Marshall and Tim Vasquez; and Tornado Talk by Tim Marshall. These are outstanding documents that will greatly benefit those who want to seriously learn about storm chasing. They are NOT something that you can just stick under your pillow and absorb the information while you sleep. If you expend the effort to study them, you will be rewarded for your time and money spent. I checked with Tim Marshall and the price for the CD has been reduced to $50.00 which includes shipping. At first, that may seem like a lot, but it is a real bargain for what you get.

The CD contains 3,142 pages and is about 450mb. If you have room on your computer, it is suggested to copy the PDF file to your hard drive for faster loading.

The CD can still be ordered from Tim Marshall.

Tim Marshall
4041 Bordeaux Circle
Flower Mound, TX 75022-7050
 
Enjoyed this resource

http://www.theweatherprediction.com/ - Was my Mecca for learning the basics. I strongly advise anyone learning or brushing up on their skills to go here. There are even quizzes in there to help you out and before long you will have the basic understanding and can start applying that knowledge into your chasing or forecasting

Thanks Danny. This is a very good site with helpful information. I really liked how the explanation on hodographs was done - appreciate the suggestion.
 
Thanks Bob! If anyone has any links they'd like me to include, just let me know.
 
Gosh, thanks to everyone for all the links, and for this entire website. Anything I have had question's on is so far very searchable and answered! :)

Now I have some reading to do.
 
I'm not sure if this is where I should ask, but I would think it would be better just to ask here rather than start a new thread because I know one has already been made in regards to the subject, but I'm having a hard time finding it.

Can anyone point me in the direction for SFC and UPPER AIR data dating back to 1998? Free source?

Thank you.
 
I'm not sure if this is where I should ask, but I would think it would be better just to ask here rather than start a new thread because I know one has already been made in regards to the subject, but I'm having a hard time finding it.

Can anyone point me in the direction for SFC and UPPER AIR data dating back to 1998? Free source?

Thank you.

Just doing a quick search I came up with these two sites:

http://weather.uwyo.edu/upperair/sounding.html
http://data.nssl.noaa.gov/dataselect/

That second one looked really good, but it appears the site may be down (hopefully just temporarily) as I can't get it to spit out any data.

You can get archived surface data here: http://www.wunderground.com/history/
 
Can anyone point me in the direction for SFC and UPPER AIR data dating back to 1998? Free source?

Free: Skip's URLs above are good... also see www.esrl.noaa.gov/raob for upper air data. Wunderground also has individual METARs going back decades.
Not free: http://www.weathergraphics.com/archive/ (but much more complete)

<cite></cite>I have a vested interest in that last link, but I figure I'd point it out anyway since I've been collecting datasets since 1993.

It's kind of ironic that NCDC has a colossal data archiving service but people have to to ESRL for raw upper air data. And I hear NOAA researchers have been able to see NCDC's Form 10 observation archive online for years, yet NCDC's public site still looks like it was designed in 1987 and you've got to receive the Form 10s via the same procedure they offered 30 years ago (I'm not kidding, either). :(

Tim
 
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