Weather course

[Alastair Pandelus]

Sorry if slightly off topic - I've just signed up to do a weather
course with the OU (see http://www3.open.ac.uk/study/undergraduate/course/s189.htm)
- I'm hoping this is going to feed into my flying - according to the
website there is 100 hours of study involved - so I'm hoping it's
going to be somewhere between substantive enough to have some decent
learning value and also achievable over a few months while working
etc. - cost is 155 pounds - the next course starts on 13 Nov 2010. I'd
be interested if anyone else wants to do the course at the same time.

[Logan Nisbet]

While I think the course would be very interesting and comprehensive,
unless you are using it to build credits for a qualification you may be
better to source some information elsewhere

Books, there are a number of them on the web as torrents(free). Look at RYA
weather book as well, although oriented towards sailing it covers the UK
weather pretty well. BHPA have books on weather also.

Websites I have found useful are:-

Met office
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/education/teachers/indepth_understanding.html

UK divers
http://www.ukdivers.net/meteorology/systems.htm

teaching and learning Scotland (heather the weather video)
http://www.ltscotland.org.uk/weatherandclimatechange/weather/typesofweather.
asp

Nasa
http://science.nasa.gov/earth-science/focus-areas/earth-weather/

So keep your money and buy yourself a nice PG toy for Christmas.

There are a number of people who are knowledgable about weather in the
Scottish flying community who you can ask for advice. Most weather for our
purposes
requires local knowledge of local effects; valley winds, shielding, sea
breeze effects etc. Speaking to local pilots will help you gain that
knowledge.

Logan

[Gordon Gibb]

Alistair, I think that what you will get out of the course will depend on
what level you are at now. If you already understand most of the concepts
outlined in the course descriptor then you probably won't get much out of
it.

It is a basic course and covers basic scientific concepts and won't be aimed
at understanding flying conditions. It's well worth getting the grounding
in science that this course will give you before attempting to go on to
advanced material or stuff related to flying. It will also help you filter
out the complete bo**ocks people talk about things they half understand as
occurs in a lot of discussion on the internet eg. see the momentum
discussion in the llsc archive. Doing a systematic course is miles better
that browsing through stuff on the internet and I my experience the Open
University material is excellent. Sounds like a good way to spend the dark
winter evenings.

gg

[Alastair Pandelus]

Thanks Logan and Gordon for the advice and links - I appreciate that
the course isn't geared to flying per se, but I'm hoping to get at
least a basic understanding of weather systems and give myself a
decent foundation to build upon. I feel that there is such a gulf
between my limited knowledge and what is being discussed on the forums
here etc. that I'm not in a position to pick up stuff - hopefully I'll
be closer to that after the course. Also appreciate it's probably
available online and elsewhere - however I think I'll get more out of
a structured course.

> >http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/education/teachers/indepth_understanding....

>
> > UK divers
> >http://www.ukdivers.net/meteorology/systems.htm
>
> > teaching and learning Scotland (heather the weather video)

> >http://www.ltscotland.org.uk/weatherandclimatechange/weather/typesofw....