Briefing Guidelines - Metr 171 A

 

These guidelines are designed to give you a framework from which you can develop a weather briefing. When giving your briefing it is very important to use established terminology for the situation or phenomenon you are describing, please ask for help. A briefing starts with study and preparation. You can't give a good weather briefing if you don't understand the weather situation, and you can't understand the weather situation without thorough analysis. It is quite common to talk about less than half of what you study and prepare for in your briefing. All items below should be looked at before you prepare your briefing. Items where it says "discuss" represent the minimum material to be presented. Other items where it says "examine" should be presented if they are pertinent, add quality and breadth to the briefing, AND you have something relevant to say about them. When referring to or pointing to places on the map, use the correct geographic references, see map1 and map2

 

(Note: you should always have read at least the local Forecast Discussion, and maybe the surrounding ones as well) 

 

(See the Briefing Score Sheet to get a detailed look at how your briefing will be graded)
 

A. Big picture:

1) Discuss large scale (hemispheric) analyses and locate major troughs ridges, jet streams, and short waves. 

       a) show 12z GFS 300 mb heights and isotachs (Troughs, ridges, jet stream analysis)

     b) show 12z GFS 500 mb heights and vort. (Troughs, ridges, shortwaves)

2) Discuss satellite imagery as it relates to large weather features in the forecast region.  (Usually IR, GARP)

3) Show current large scale surface analysis. Other analyses can be found here.
  

B. Current local weather analysis:

1) Discuss local satellite imagery if possible (GARP 1KM Vis)

2) Discuss local radar if precipitation is occuring in our region.

3) Discuss the current obs, including regional obs. (Surface plot SJSU)

 

(Note: if this is the first day of a city, then show climo numbers and topography map)

 

C. Forecasting:

1) Examine trends observed in your regional weather analysis.

2) Discuss model forecasts for your location, use 12Z ETA 212 East and use the "forecast funnel":

    a) 300 mb isotachs (RH if necessary)

    b) 500 mb heights and vorticity. (RH if necessary)

    c) 700 mb omega (RH if necessary)

    d) 850 mb temps (RH if necessary)

    e) 925 mb temps (RH if necessary)

    f) Surface temps/precip (From Nam 215 and GFS for comparison if necessary)

    g) identify significant NAM GFS model differences

3) Identify and discuss the main forecast problem or problems.(this can be done in 2 above)

4) Look at model soundings to corroborate what you've seen so far. (SJSU)

5) Look at model cross sections to corroborate what you've seen so far. (SJSU)

6) In depth analysis of one particular area (Discuss with Mike Voss before briefing)

7) Show significant interpolated model numbers (TAMU)

8) Discuss the AVN, ETA and or NGM MOS forecasts for your location.  (SJSU)

9 ) Make a forecast, write numbers on board!

 

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