Bayou City Outdoors is now a part of the American Outdoor Adventure Network. Below is a list of all Network clubs that you NOW have access to with your username and password information.
Our very own, Michelle Stewart, is a meteorologist with loads of information about how to get a weather forecast from the Internet. So, before you go outdoors, check out this information so that you can determine whether to bring an umbrella or sunglasses! Look for her clinic about the weather on our calendar and you can ask her personally about your weather-related questions!
Find the place you are forecasting for on weather underground: HYPERLINK "http://www.wunderground.com" http://www.wunderground.com for instance if you want to find weather info for a Saturday training ride you might type Katy, TX in and then click on ‘Hourly’ underneath each day of the 5 day forecast to get a detailed 3 hourly forecast of wind, rain, and cloud cover. The wind speeds are which direction the wind is coming from and this will tell you just how much of a headwind you will be riding into. This is an actual forecast produced by the local National Weather Service (NWS) office by the on-duty meteorologist. They create an area wide forecast on a computer grid so that we can access it at any point. You can also click anywhere on the map on this page: HYPERLINK "http://www.nws.noaa.gov/" http://www.nws.noaa.gov/ and it will zoom in to give you a forecast, but it will not have the three hourly wind format that Weather Underground does.
If there is rain or wind in the forecast, try to determine what kind of weather feature is producing the rain or the wind by looking at: HYPERLINK "http://www.hpc.ncep.noaa.gov" http://www.hpc.ncep.noaa.gov and pulling up the forecast map for the time period you want. Click on ‘Short range forecast’ if your time period is in the next 2 days and ‘Day 3-7 forecasts’ if your time is further out. Remember to subtract 6 hours for CST (5 hours for CDT in the summer) from the 12Z on the map. These are made by a meteorologist and are not just model data. If you find a cold front or low pressure system that may be causing rain on your forecast day, you may want to keep checking back to see the how the forecast of the timing of the front changes.
Another way to keep track of a front or low pressure system is Penn State’s e-wall: HYPERLINK "http://www.meteo.psu.edu/~gadomski/ewall.html" http://www.meteo.psu.edu/~gadomski/ewall.html or by looking at satellite or radar images from the NWS sites: HYPERLINK "http://www.goes.noaa.gov" http://www.goes.noaa.gov or HYPERLINK "http://www.nws.noaa.gov/radar_tab.php" http://www.nws.noaa.gov/radar_tab.php On the top of the e-wall page is ‘Surface Plots’ , if you click on the ‘8HR’ next to the ‘S.C.’ you will see the latest 8 hours of observations for the South Central region including Texas. The black number is air temperature, the blue number is the dewpoint, the wind barb depicts the direction the wind is from and each ‘feather’ on the barb is 10 knots of wind and each ‘half’ feather is 5 knots of wind. In the lower left of the page is t-1 where you can put your mouse over and track the observations through time. This can be used to monitor the passage of a cold front through the middle of TX so you can tell when it will get to Houston.
If you want to track a system using model data you can find the GFS, our global model, on the e-wall page under ‘U.S. operational 4 panel’ : HYPERLINK "http://www.meteo.psu.edu/~gadomski/AVN_0z/avnloopnew.html" http://www.meteo.psu.edu/~gadomski/AVN_0z/avnloopnew.html and just so you are very confused they use the old acronym AVN which is the same as GFS. The upper left panel shows the upper air (the jet stream), the upper right panel shows the surface pressure marked by H and L. The lower left is a middle level in the atmosphere and shows Humidity with green being humid the lower right panel shows precipitation.
Another way to access the GFS model data that is a bit more user friendly is this page: HYPERLINK "http://www.rap.ucar.edu/weather" http://www.rap.ucar.edu/weather Click on ‘Forecast’ and then ‘GFS’ and choose your times and then display precip or MSLP for surface pressure. This is an image of the whole U.S. so it can be frustrating to find a small town in PA that you might be forecasting for.
Finally the RUC is here: HYPERLINK "http://ruc.noaa.gov" http://ruc.noaa.gov Click on 13km bkup RUC over to the left and then South Central to zoom in on TX. This is a good place for short a term precipitation forecast, especially if you can compare it to current RADAR to see how good of a job the model is doing. Don’t forget to subtract 6 hrs for CST or 5 hrs for CDT from the Z time on the maps.
If you are looking for weather along the Pacific coast it is good to consult the Ocean Prediction Center which tracks storms all the way across the Pacific before they hit the west coast: HYPERLINK "http://www.opc.ncep.noaa.gov" http://www.opc.ncep.noaa.gov All of these charts are produced by a meteorologist and are not just model data. They also have Sea Surface Temperature (SST) images so that you can locate the Gulf Stream: HYPERLINK "http://www.opc.ncep.noaa.gov/Ocean_Products.shtml" http://www.opc.ncep.noaa.gov/Ocean_Products.shtml
Here is the link to the satellite that measures wind speed and direction over the ocean: HYPERLINK "http://manati.orbit.nesdis.noaa.gov/hires" http://manati.orbit.nesdis.noaa.gov/hires which is very cool to look at if you are trying to find a hurricane out in the middle of the ocean.
