Weather World - Weather World attempts to collect together a large amount of weather information and overall does a good job and is user-friendly. You can enter a location and find out the current weather, or keep track of forecasts, satellite maps or warnings. If you want to know how to calculate relative humidity or the wind chill index, the Weather Calculations page shows you how. Other web pages include a glossary, a list of weather programs available to download, a collection of weather folklore, and instructions on how to make your own weather forecasts. There is also a page focused on El Nino and a "Hot Topic" page that is supposedly updated every month, but doesn't seem to have been since 1999. The Weather Sites page has links to several hundred weather websites, however is restricted to North America. The main drawback is that I found it took a while to load and links were slow or didn't work, though this may not be a problem with faster modems. Rating: 6 out of 10 (28 December 2002) KM
http://members.aol.com/Accustiver/wxworld.html
Atmospheric Halos - Some of the most spectacular sights of the sky involve little more than the interaction of light, water, dust, and ice crystals. We may have seen rainbows, coronas, and sun rays, but few are lucky enough to witness sundogs, supralateral arcs, or a 46° radius halo. All and more can be seen here, and the authors take a guess at what marvels might be seen on other planets. (11 August 2002) AD
http://www.sundog.clara.co.uk/halo/halosim.htm
Atmospheric Optics - A website doesn't have to be huge to be beautiful and it doesn't have to be loaded with scientific articles to fall into the science category. This gem, as the name suggests, is a collection of images of atmospheric phenomena. Here are photographs of rainbows and clouds so pretty that you just have to see them all. The categories are intuitive, and include "Rays & Shadows", "Water Droplets" "Ice Halos" and more. The Rays section is by far the best, and also offers the most photos. If you have never heard of terms like "anti-crepuscular" and "opposition effect", you might even learn something. The Halos section has lots of illustrations which explain how some of the illusions of light scattering are created., and explains how the alignment of crystals in clouds affect the light. It doesn't get too technical, though, and it is easy to enjoy the tour. Designwise there is not much to say about this small website. There is a simple navigation menu which takes you through the site, and you can also click on left/right arrows on the top bar. The content is well-presented, well written and thought out, and the photographs are simply stunning. The site ends with a list of links to related sites with more in-depth information for research. Rating: 7 out of 10. (25 July 2002) TG
http://www.sundog.clara.co.uk/atoptics/phenom.htm
Drought: A Paleo Perspective - In an attempt to learn as much as possible about the cycles of drought, scientists at NOAA have been investigating ancient clues. Tree rings can yield data dating thousands of years back, but for information beyond that, researchers must examine sediment from lakes and sand dunes. The devastating effects of drought are outlined here, limiting the focus to North America. We don't tend to think of droughts as being as severe as tornadoes, for instance, but their tendency to be prolonged (parts of the Plains region of the U.S. suffered for eight years during the Dust Bowl Drought) can result in profound economic hardship. There is bad news: droughts with lengths surpassing any occurring in the 20th century have been seen in the not too distant past, and can be expected to occur again. By amassing quantities of data, scientists hope to be able to predict these natural hazards. (28 November 2001) AD
http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/paleo/drought/drght_...
The Wind: Our Fierce Friend - Part of the Franklin Institute Science Museum in Philadelphia (Pennsylvania), The Wind is an online museum exhibit, complete with background information, classroom activities and contributions from students around the USA. Starting out, 'Blustery Beginnings' provides photographs and video clips that show the effects of the invisible winds. Online resources cover wind energy, wind weather effects and even wind recreational activities. Books with wind themes, poetry about the wind, and wind creations to make round out this section. The site also includes classroom activities and a place where you can post your student's wind related creations such as photographs, music, poetry, research and art work. One of the most interesting parts of the site is the results of the 1995 collaboration involving schools across the country on the topic 'Wind: Our Fierce Friend' which includes links to the classroom projects and websites, showing a wide range of student work. (14 November 2001) CK
http://sln.fi.edu/tfi/units/energy/wind.html
Hurricane City - If you are looking for information about hurricanes and tropical storms in the Atlantic Ocean, Hurricane City provides access to a wide variety of information on current and previous storms. For current storms, you can see radar images with colors showing the wind speeds in each part of the storm, along with web cams in the area, emergency management information, and local news sources. In addition, they provide access to weather audio for current and historical storms, allowing you to hear from people as they experienced each storm. Hurricane City also has developed a system for ranking cities according to their hurricane threat, allowing you to learn about the top 50 hurricane-impacted cities, and has created a database of storm impacts in major cities along the Atlantic. The site has an unattractive look, cluttered with poor color choices and advertising, but is worth exploring in spite of that weakness. (2 November 2001) CK
http://www.hurricanecity.com/
Weather Basics from USA Today - Weather Basics from USA Today provides basic information on weather and climate topics. Want to know how inversions create air pollution episodes, or how rainbows form, or the cause of turbulence on plane flights? You'll probably find your answer here. Topics covered include climate change, El Nino, thunderstorms, fog, wind and air masses. Most topics also use diagrams which provide extra information when the mouse is moved over them. The website is understandably US-centric, however with topics such as "El Nino disrupts world's weather", there should be information on the effects on continents other than the Americas. While the basic mechanics of weather are the same the globe over, many of the topics examining the effects of weather look only at the US, which severely limits the usefulness of this website for people outside the US. The amount of information included on each page is also limited, with links to extra information, which would have been better included on the main page. It may be because of my slower modem, but I also found the pages slow to load. (2 August 2001) KM
http://www.usatoday.com/weather/wgraph0.htm
