Know Before You Go: Weather Information and Resources

Weather affects the nature photographer and travler by either offering dramatic weather situations and light to photograph in, or by hampering the excursion. Either way, you need to get out in the weather if outdoor and nature photography is your passion.

We have some articles to help you with photographing weather and photographing “in the weather” on our site and here are some other sites to help you weather the storm and things to know before you go…

US Weather Information

• For 24 hour weather news, check the Weather Channel
• Weather Underground – Great Storm Predictions, Models and Tracking Information
• US National Weather Service
• NOAA Updated Weather
• The Weather Beat
• CNN Weather
• US weather reports from the cities
• US Local City Doppler Reports
• US National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR)
• Oregon State University Atmospheric Science Weather Information
• The Daily Planet (University of Illinois)
• University of Hawaii Meteorology
• Wunderground Weather with details for your area or city
• Reports from TV weathercasts with web cams and audio reports

Canada

• Weather Reports for Canada
• Canadian Weather
• Yahoo! Canada Weather reports and information

International Weather Information

• Weather in Africa
• Australia (Bureau of Meteorology web site)
• Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society – Sydney Centre
• Centre for Atmospheric Science (Cambridge)
• Earth Watch, continuously updated radar, forecasts, and reports
• Weather Images – Weather maps and info on precipitation, temperatures, hurricanes, tornados, even seismic activity and sunrise and sunset times. Includes heat index calculations and temperature conversions
• Weather in Outer Space (in case you’ve planned a trip there)

Weather Things to Do

• Wild Weather – Visual impacts of the forces of weather
• Build your own weather station, barometer, and wind gauge
• Weather Base – Research climate statistics worldwide
• Weather and climate almanac, including info on weather disasters

Weather Elements, Tornados, Typhoons, Hurricanes, Storms, and Climate Change

• The Tornado Project Online
• Tornado and Storm Research Organization
• Vortech Storm Research Organization
• Lightning and Atmospheric Electricity Research
• National Hurricane Center in Miami, Florida
• National Weather Service Storm Prediction Center
• Hurricanes, Typhoons and Tropical Cyclones
• The National Wind Technology Center
• Oregon State University’s Energy Resources Research Laboratory (ERRL)
• The Science Learning Network on wind
• WWW Tide and Current Predictor
• Temperature World with statistics and global information
• NOAA Weather Information
• Snow crystal research and information
• Michigan Tech Institute of Snow Research
• University of Calgary Applied Snow and Avalanche Research
• Flood Information and Research Links
• Weather Encyclopedia Research
• USA Community natural “hazards” and dangers
• Climate Change
• Global Change Master Directory
• US Environment Protection Agency – Acid Rain
• Rainforest Alliance

Weather Watching Tools and Resources

If you are obsessed with weather like we are, here are a few bells and whistles to help you keep track of the weather.

Firefox Browser Weather Extension

If you use Firefox Internet Browser, there is a weather extension or add-on you can easily add to your browser that will give you a frequently updated weather report in the bottom right corner of the status bar. Called Forecastfox Weather Extension, it will give you options to choose a specific zipcode and the number of days you would like to see the weather forecast for. It gives you the morning and late afternoon forecasts, two icons per day, and a quick link access to the Accuweather website. It there are severe weather alerts, it provides those with a red stop sign in the status bar.

WeatherBug

Need a constant reminder of the weather? WeatherBug at Weatherbug.com offers shareware that puts the temperature on your taskbar. As long as you are connected to the Internet, the program will report the current temperature, winds, barometric pressure and other weather details.

They also provide weather forecasts, warnings and alerts, and radar images with a click of the button. It includes temperatures for many countries and cities worldwide. The shareware is FREE with advertisements, USD$19.95 without ads.

WetSock

Given top ratings by tucows.com, this shareware program is free for the trying, USD$12.00 for the buying, and provides detailed weather forecasting from aviation reports at local airports with hour-by-hour forecasts. It is capable of providing information on over 4,000 cities around the world, viewing up to 10 cities at a time in your system tray. The program runs in the background of Windows, updating you when you are online.