A thorough understanding of weather involves the study of geography and physics, especially optics, the hydrologic cycle, the Coriolis force and friction. This online course covers the basics of meteorology including fronts, severe storms, weather forecasting, precipitation and El Ni o. Designed for high school or university undergraduate student, the course explains concepts in simple terms, contains an online glossary, and provides abundant illustrations and video clips. The next time you are tempted to complain about the television weather report, spend some time here to get an understanding of the complexities facing meteorologists in the quest for accurate weather forecasts. Take a multimedia tour of these winds of change. Shockwave and VRML, for which you will need the CosmoPlayer plugin, help provide a detailed look at how hurricanes develop, how they move, the damage they can cause and some famous weather names, such as El Nino appear here too.
Easy navigation makes for a cool and windy site.
The extravaganza is also available on CD-ROM to purchase. The team have video'd their real flight into Hurricane Opal. The story is told of the day dust became a terror. Farmers in this region had always suffered the Dust Blues but what started as a gentle breeze on a hot summer's day became a tidal wave of dust 7,000 feet high by mid-afternoon which engulfed the area and dropped the temperature 50 degrees. The site provides audio clips of eyewitnesses, such as Harley Holladay who was a slip of a lad at the time of the Black Blizzard of Palm Sunday back in 1935.