A station model is a symbolic illustration showing the weatheroccurring at a given reporting station. Meteorologists created the station model to plot a number of weather elements in a small space on weather maps. Maps filled with dense station-model plots can be difficult to read, but they allow meteorologists, pilots, and mariners to see important weather patterns.
A computer draws a station model for each observation location. The station model is primarily used on surface-weather maps, but can also be used to show the weather aloft. A completed station-model map allows users to analyze patterns in air pressure, temperature, wind, cloud cover, and precipitation.
Station model plots use an internationally-accepted coding convention that has changed little since August 1, 1941. Elements in the plot show the key weather elements, including temperature, dew point, wind, cloud cover, air pressure, pressure tendency, and precipitation.
Read more about Station Model: Measurement Location and Units, Plotted Winds, Cloud Cover, Cloud Types, Present Weather and Visibility, Temperature and Dew Point, Sea Level Pressure and Height of Pressure Surface, Pressure Tendency, Past Weather, See Also
Famous quotes containing the words station and/or model:
“With boys you always know where you stand. Right in the path of a hurricane. It’s all there. The fruit flies hovering over their waste can, the hamster trying to escape to cleaner air, the bedrooms decorated in Early Bus Station Restroom.”
—Erma Bombeck (20th century)
“The playing adult steps sideward into another reality; the playing child advances forward to new stages of mastery....Child’s play is the infantile form of the human ability to deal with experience by creating model situations and to master reality by experiment and planning.”
—Erik H. Erikson (20th century)