Meteorology

Meteorology Concepts

• The Coriolis Force

  Why air (and aircraft) deflect right of track in the Northern Hemisphere and left in the Southern — the rotating-Earth force behind every wind on the chart.

• Lapse Rate, Stability and Cloud Formation

  How ELR, DALR and SALR decide whether air sinks, keeps rising, forms layer cloud, or builds into towering cumulus.

• METAR — decoding the standard weather report

  Eleven groups, in a fixed order, packed into a single line. What every group means, why each character is there, and how to read a METAR end-to-end.

• Thunderstorm Life Cycle

  The three stages every thunderstorm cell passes through, the hazards each stage produces, and how far you need to stay clear of a CB to be safe.