You must bear in mind, however, that the orientation of the cloud systems in relation to the meteoro-logical features must be adjusted according to the reverse flow. As mentioned earlier, computer products are frequently used in place of the hand-T his practice is rapidly becoming standard procedure and is even more applicable to the Southern Hemisphere because of the scarcity of data. The AG must learn as much as he can about the application and interpretation of computer products in analysis and forecasting. Certain aspects, however, must be emphasized. Since the Southern Hemisphere is largely made up of water, oceanic analysis is of greater importance.
Satellite imagery is extremely valuable because of the lack of weather reporting stations.
The Falkland Islands War of 1982 served to dramatically highlight its importance. Weather reports in this area of the South Atlantic became almost totally nonexistent and severely hampered the British Admiralty s operational planning efforts. Wind and pressure observations from ships are not overly abundant, and, therefore, are extremely important. They should be used in conjunction with geostrophic wind scales to get as representative a pressure pattern as possible over water areas. Knowledge of terrain and topographical characteristics is important when considering the representativeness of island and other land reports and in drawing the pressure pattern.