Surface Maps

[doomsman]

John, thank you for the great site. I have been a weather nut for years and have a lot of fun trying to do my own forecasts. My question is; how accurate are the Millibar readings on the surface maps and do they drop the one off the beginning? The numbers given seem very low at times.

Thank you
Doug Boyd

[admin]

Hi Doug-

The pressure plotted on surface maps is sort of coded. What they do is drop the decimal point and also omit either the "9" or "10" in front of the number.

So for example a plotted number of 147 would actually be 1014.7. Or a plotted number of 986 would be 998.6. I believe the break off point for if it is a 9 or 10 you add in front is 500, but for the most part it should make pretty good sense what goes in front a 9 or 10.

-John

[doomsman]

Makes sence, the map would be cluttered with all the numbers on it. thank you for your Quick reply. I have been doing a better job with this curent system than the local scare mongers on TV

[average_joe]

Doug,
Here is a link for How to read 'surface" weather maps from NWS Jetstream - Online School for Weather. Be sure to visit their home page and surf a little.


Could you drop an e-mail to John on how you managed to create that post at the bottom of the Off topic Ramblings thread list page. I couldn't figure that one out. Something might need to be fixed.

[doomsman]

If you are talking about boys are back in town. I tryed to edit it out of ask John and into off topic by cut and paste thru word. I got some funny feed back and started admin help and slunk off to hide my computer iliterate self. I wrote down the link above and hope spend some time on it this aft. Thank you

Doug Boyd