Watching the Weather
Hey everyone, how’s it going?
Today I figured that since I’ve been complaining about the weather and how when it is cloudy, astronomy can’t easily be done, I figured I could tell you a bit about how amateur astronomers like myself keep track of all of it. We typically consult tables known as clear sky charts. Clear sky charts put together all of the available information about a location, and allow people to easily see the conditions of the next few days. I attached an image of the clear sky chart for Mesa, and I’ll explain a bit about it. The cloud cover and European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) cloud mean the same thing, being how likely there is to be clouds in the sky. The ECMWF tends to be far more accurate, since it is from a reputable weather-tracking organization. However, it isn’t available for every location. When there is a higher chance of cloud cover, the color becomes lighter. The transparency section is about how “visible” the sky is. Basically, if the sky is hazy, then transparency is bad and would be represented by a lighter color. The seeing part is a bit complicated to explain, but in simple terms it is how detailed objects can be when you view them. For example, bad seeing would result in objects “twinkling” and “waving” more and would show a lighter color. Finally, the darkness section just tracks how dark it is outside. Clearly, during the day the color is white, and as it becomes darker during night the color becomes more blue. In places with less light pollution, the boxes would end up much darker. However, since this is for the city of Mesa, it never gets too dark at night.
While this is mainly useful to people who need to monitor the sky like astronomers, it can also be helpful to just know what the weather will be like during any given time.
See you guys next time!
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