W I N K S Weather Information Network for Kentucky Students

WINKS provides Kentucky schools with links to the numerous weather information sources on the Internet.
Materials for Student Activities in Meteorology (S.A.M.) for the 6-12 classroom are available from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Contact Barb McGehan at NOAA, (303) 497-6634.

Weather Links:

• Weather & Climate Sites has lots of great links to weather pages.

• University of Kentucky College of Agriculture Weather Page

• Midwestern Regional Climate Center (includes Kentucky)

• Current U.S. Weather Map (not always working)

• WeatherNet

• The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Network Information Center

• The NOAA's United States climate reference pages include plots of average maximum and minimum daily temperature, temperature extremes, precipitation, and snowfall for 612 cities in the United States and its possessions. Also available are monthly averages and anomalies for temperature and precipitation for summer and winter.

• National Weather Service

• INTELLiCast: World Weather, provided by NBC News, also has an "Ask Dr. Dewpoint" section for your weather questions.

• USA Daily Radar Map

• USA Daily Satellite Map

• The Weather Channel web site includes Kentucky weather information.

• WeatherPost is a meteorologically sound site from The Washington Post that features 3,600 searchable weather forecasts for locations around the world. You'll also find an abundance of other features, including the latest weather news and a Weather Reference Desk that's full of subject-related glossaries, calculators, and facts about storm chasers. You can even "question an expert" online -- with a greater-than-average chance that it will be answered as well.

• WeatherLab has morning, afternoon, evening, and overnight weather forecasts for nearly 2,000 cities worldwide. The site also includes extended forecasts, weather maps, Doppler radar images, satellite cloud photos, current conditions in near real-time, and information on airport delays.

• weatherOnline! is the ultimate weather site on the Internet, with a phenomenal amount of weather information. Complete local forecasts for thousands of locations, maps, charts, graphics, the Internet's largest collection of weather site links, and a slew of creative content (weather product reviews, weather news stories, weather and environmental columnists, etc.). weatherOnline! also hosts a tropical weather page, complete with the latest information on hurricanes and tropical storms that are out and about.

• The Weather Underground

• Weather Man attempts to bring all of the highest-quality weather-related information to one site. You'll find current U.S. and Canadian weather conditions, satellite photos, weather services, weather reports from television stations, and much more.

• EarthRise is a fascinating site featuring thousands of beautiful satellite photos of Earth and its cities, bays, and coastlines.

• Kids as Global Scientists '99 engaged students in an inquiry-based middle school weather curriculum between February 7, 1999 and March 31, 2000.

Lesson Plans and WebQuests

• Weather WebQuest for 4th-grade students
• Severe Weather WebQuest for older students
• Tornado WebQuest Students write a journalistic research article after tracking and developing tornado information.
• Weather Unit WebQuest constitutes a whole unit on weather, including the water cycle, cloud types and formation, local climate, climate in general, and climate patterns and regions across the United States. Students will complete worksheets and charts and graph spreadsheets, with a final online exam testing their knowledge. For 5th grade.
• Best Weather WebQuest Grades 4-8 can complete this webquest on where in the United States you will find the "best" weather -- after deciding what constitutes the "best weather" anyway. Spreadsheets will reflect gathered data on five American cities; the final presentation takes the form of a poster for exhibit.

September is HURRICANE season!

• Atlantic hurricane and storm tracking
• Tropical storm and hurricane watch information from the Federal Emergency Management Agency
• Hurricane dynamics
• Living with tropical weather systems
• Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies
• USA Today Weather guide to hurricanes
• Hurricanes, typhoons, and tropical cyclones

Spring is TORNADO season!

• The Tornado Project Whirling with energy, this site provides gale-force information on tornadoes, storm chasing, safety, and myths about tornadoes.

• Tornado Warning! -- the diary of a storm chaser

EL NIÑO

• Tracking El Niño, This Nova site on PBS Online takes visitors on a series of adventures while attempting to unravel the scientific mysteries underlying the century's biggest weather event. Beyond news and insightful articles, the site creates a personal weather laboratory for users that feeds real-time data from the field and offers webcams positioned around the globe.

• El Niño: Hot Air Over Hot Water from The Franklin Institute Online

• The Environmental News Network's Special El Niño Report has everything you ever wanted to know about the weather disturbance that gets blamed for everything from unseasonably warm weather to your aunt's migraine headaches: what El Niño is, what causes it, what it causes, and a history of the phenomenon's discovery. Perhaps most impressive, this site features a truly useful, entirely non-cosmetic use of web animation: Two of the explanatory diagrams actually show swirling wind patterns.

Satellite Images

• GOES Project "GOES", the Geosynchronous Operational Environmental Satellite, takes the moving pictures of clouds used on TV weather broadcasts.
• NASA Seasonal-to-Interannual Prediction Project AVHRR Photos This archive features images taken with experimental Advanced Very High-Resolution Radiometers.
• RAIDS The RApid Information Dissemination System SAR processing facility, installed at the West Freugh ground station in Scotland, is a facility to provide the customer with electronic access to ERS-1 SAR observations direct from the receiving ground station within 24 hours of data acquisition.
• Earth Satellite Corporation (EarthSat) is a geo-information company using GIS and remote sensing data from Landsat, SPOT NOAA, AVHRR, Radarsat, IRS-l, ERS, and GOES satellites in addition to aerial photography to solve resource management problems.
• ProVIEW is Windows software that allows the non-experienced user to manipulate images and signals simply.