Student Activity
Severe Weather Preparedness Adventure
PLAN!T NOW’s Young Meteorologist Program
Introduction
The winter of 2013 was particularly severe at times in the central and eastern parts of the United States. Indeed, some of the winter storms were so large as to affect states as far west as California and as far east as Ohio. How does an individual person, a household, a community or a state prepare for such a storm? How can one survive in a severe winter storm? What does that storm look like? How does it appear from space? How does it develop? Where does it go next?
Begin this lesson with Owlie Skywarn as he journey’s through a Severe Weather Preparedness Adventure in PLAN!T NOW’s Young Meteorologist Program. Learn about five types of severe weather, characteristics of each, and how to prepare for and survive in each. Then you are invited to explore winter storms from ground and space, do further research and share your knowledge.
In the following Student Activity pages, you will find these helps to guide you through the adventure:
- Young Meteorologist Program – a tutorial guide to starting and completing the Severe Weather Preparedness Adventure on-line game
- Broadcast News Video Report – a tutorial guide to viewing and extracting useful information from an ABC World News report video.
- Winter Storm Map – February 21, 2013 – an outline map of the United States on which you can record storm information from various sources
- Finding GOES Imagery – a tutorial guide for obtaining GOES-East satellite images
- Interpreting Weather Satellite Imagery – a tutorial guide for using ImageJ software to display, analyze, and interpret weather satellite images
- GOES 13 – February 21, 2013 – 1715Z – a single page with three GOES images from a significant time in this winter storm
- Your Turn –completion activities with which you will do further research and report to your class
- Young Meteorologist Lesson Answer Sheet – to be completed by you as you make important notes at suggested points as you work through the tutorials listed above
At all times, follow your teacher’s directions. Good hunting! Get started now!
More Lessons from the Sky, 2018, Satellite Educators Association Young Meteorologist Program 27
Student Activity
Young Meteorologist Program
A Severe Weather Preparedness Adventure
Follow Owlie Skywarn on a Severe Weather Preparedness Adventure as he works with experts to learn about hurricanes, thunderstorms and lightning, floods and flash floods, tornados, and winter storms, how to prepare for them and how to survive in them. Following the adventure you will have an opportunity for further research and to develop your own project to share your information with others.
: Ensure your computer is Internet enabled, the sound is on, and the volume set to an appropriate level.
: Point your browser to http://youngmeteorologist.org/game/index.html
: After meeting the characters, click Start to enter the game.
: At the Table of Contents screen, follow your teacher’s directions.
: To pause at any time during the game, click the Pause button in the lower left corner of the game window. To continue, click Play u.
: To stop the game at any time, click PLAN!T NOW .
: Refer to your teacher’s directions to complete those portions of the Severe Weather Preparedness Adventure assigned today.
: You may be asked to print a checklist during the adventure. Follow your teacher’s directions for obtaining printed copies.
: When finished for today, close your browser.
Broadcast News Video Report
Viewing and Analyzing the Broadcast News Report
This ABC World News video report with Diane Sawyer and Sam Champion is posted on online for freely accessible viewing. The story is about the winter storm of February 20-22, 2013. The story was broadcast on February 21.
: Ensure your computer in Internet enabled and the sound is turn on with the volume set to an appropriate level.
: Launch your browser.
: Point your browser to this location:
http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/video/winter-blast-impact-states-america-18551743
: The video clip starts automatically. Watch the video, about 2½ minutes.
: When finished, play it again, but this time click the Pause button when needed to make notes by answering these questions on your Answer sheet and marking your map.
1. How many states were affected by this storm?
2. List and describe at least three different negative things that happened as a result of this storm.
3. How much snow fell from this storm in Denver, Colorado before Thursday, February 21? How much snow was expected to fall in Kansas City by the end of the day on Thursday?
Obtain an outline map of North America that also outlines each U.S. state.
: From the video, locate and mark the following areas on the map:
ü The area of low pressure.
ü The area where thunderstorms and possibly tornados are forming.
ü The area where most of the ice is forming on the ground.
ü The area where most of the freezing rain and snow is falling.
: When finished with the map, close your browser. Have your teacher check your map.
More Lessons from the Sky, 2018, Satellite Educators Association Young Meteorologist Program 27
Name ______Date ______Class______
More Lessons from the Sky, 2018, Satellite Educators Association Young Meteorologist Program 27
Student Activity
Finding GOES Imagery
Accessing GOES-East Satellite Images
During your research you may need to obtain and use recent images from a Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES). There are two GOES satellites in operational orbit about 35,000km (22,000 miles) above the Earth. They are in orbit over the equator and travel at a speed sufficient for them to remain over the same ground position at all times. GOES-East is positioned at 75°W longitude to view the eastern United States and the hurricane formation area of the North Atlantic Ocean. GOES-West is positioned at 135°W to view the western United States and the East Pacific Ocean. Imagery is processed and archived for free retrieval. Except for occasional maintenance periods or radio reception problems, a fresh infrared image of the continental United States is archived every 30 minutes.
This tutorial will guide you through locating and downloading GOES satellite images of the continental United States. Infrared imagery has been selected because it is the best for showing clouds structure and relative temperatures. NOAA has already processed the raw GOES-East sensor data by adding some image data from other satellites, an informational footer, political boundaries, and a color code for the coldest cloud tops in the image.
: Ensure your computer is Internet enabled.
: Launch your browser and point it to ftp://ftp.nnvl.noaa.gov/GOES/color_IR/.
Here you will find a long list of images for download. You must find and download only the images of interest to you for your investigation. Use this guide to decode the file names:
LMBIR2017-01-04-154218.jpg
Suppose, for example, you are interested in cloud structure and movement from December 8, 2017 from 9:00 AM to 9:00PM EST. First the local time must be converted to UTC.
1. Change to 24-hour format: If local time is before noon, just drop the colon; if noon or later, drop the colon and add 1200…
9:00 AM = 0900 hours
2. Change from local time to UTC: For EST, add 5 hours (500)…
0900 hours = 1400Z
Use this chart to help change local time and UTC:
Your U.S. Time Zone / Convert to UTC / Convert to Local TimeEDT / Local time + 4 hours / UTC - 4 hours
EST, CDT / Local time + 5 hours / UTC - 5 hours
CST, MDT / Local time + 6 hours / UTC - 6 hours
MST, PDT / Local time + 7 hours / UTC - 7 hours
PST / Local time + 8 hours / UTC - 8 hours
The image code shown in the file name would seem to be UTC time. However it is neither UTC nor local time. You may have to look at several images to find the first in your time period of interest. For this example, start with image code 101216 for December 8, 2017.
: Find and click LMBIR2017-12-08-101216.jpg. Wait for the image to display on the screen.
: Note the footer information in the lower left corner of the image.
GOES East at 14:15 UTC on DEC 8 17
This image was taken at 1415Z on December 8, 2017. This will be the first image in your sequence.
: Right-click the image and select Save image as (PC) OR Ctrl+click (Mac), navigate to the appropriate storage location (check with your teacher), change the file name to CONUS_IR-2017-12-08-1415Z.jpg, and click Save.
: Click the browser’s Back button and wait for the screen to return to the file list. Locate the next file in the list and repeat the previous step.
: Continue to repeat the last two steps until you have downloaded all images for the time period of interest. In this example, LMBIR2017-12-08-214218.jpg is the last file in your image sequence. When you save the file, rename it CONUS_IR-2017-12-09-0215Z.jpg.)
When you finish downloading the images for the time period of interest to your investigation, collect them all in a single folder. Insure no other files are in this folder. The folder name is not important – just remember where it is located.
You will now open all of the images together in ImageJ.
: Launch ImageJ. On the menu bar, click File > Import > Image Sequence.
: Navigate to the folder containing your CONUS_IR images. Click to highlight the first file only. Then click Open.
: Confirm the number of images to be opened. Insure only Sort names numerically is checked. Click OK.
You should see all of the images in the folder open in a single image stack. Now you are ready for further analysis and interpretation of your image stack. The Interpreting Weather Satellite Imagery tutorial may be helpful.
Interpreting Weather Satellite Imagery
Using ImageJ for Analysis
The satellite imagery from February 2013 is available in three videos files. The next steps are to (1) display them in a meaningful way and (2) use ImageJ to help enhance and manipulate the images to understand the story they can tell. ImageJ is a high quality image processing and analysis program. It was originally developed at the National Institute of Health (NIH) for analysis of medical imaging. It is free to download and use at school or at home. Learning to use ImageJ is not difficult. Using some of ImageJ’s tools, you will observe, analyze, and interpret the image frames in GOES13-IR.avi
: Ensure your computer has the current version of ImageJ installed.
: Launch ImageJ. Click File > Open. Navigate to the folder containing GOES13-IR.avi, select it and click Open. The AVI Reader dialogue opens. Accept the default settings and click OK.
An image stack opens is a new window.
Note the information bar at the top of the image window.
§ 1/112 indicates that frame 1 of 112 frames in this image stack is currently showing in the window.
§ (0.11 s) when animation is started, indicates the time elapsed since the start of the first frame.
§ 640x480 pixels is the image size, 640 pixels wide and 480 pixels high.
§ RGB indicates this is an RGB (red, green, blue) image. That means, it’s in color even though the data are expressed in graytones.\/\
§ 131MB is the size of the image file if saved as an uncompressed image stack. This is not the size of the GOES13-IR.avi file.
: Move the cursor around the image.
Note how the numbers in the ImageJ status bar change.
§ x=122, y=84 show which pixel the cursor is over. The upper left corner is (0,0) or x=0 and y=0. The lower right corner is (640,480) or x=640 and y=480.
§ z=0 indicates the first frame in the image stack is currently displayed.
§ value=184,184,184 gives the brightness values of the red, green, and blue, respectively, in that pixel. The numbers vary from 0-255, higher numbers are brighter. A pixel value = 0,0,0 is black (no light or brightness at all). A pixel value = 255,255,255 is white (maximum light or brightness for each of the primary colors). The image header and footer are in color, but the rest of the image is composed of 256 shades of gray where the brightness value for any one of the three primary colors will always be identical to the other two.
: Press \ on the keyboard to start the animation. Watch the entire image stack animation (less than 13 seconds long) several times. Note the formation and movement of clouds from different directions and areas. Note the shapes of the clouds. Stop the animation by clicking once anywhere in the image window.
: Click the right arrow at the lower right corner of the image window (right end of the scroll bar) to advance the image stack display by one frame. Click the left arrow on the other end of the scroll bar to reverse one frame. You can also press the key to advance one frame; press to go reverse one frame. Find the frame with the date February 21, 2013 at time 1715Z.
: To zoom in, click the Magnifying Glass tool button and then click the image once. To return to a smaller size, click the Magnifying Glass tool button then right-click the image. Zoom in to 150% or 200% of the original image size.
: Click the Scrolling tool then click and drag the image in the image window so the storm appears centered in the window.
: Using the cloud chart provided by your teacher, identify as many of the cloud types as you can find in the storm area, especially those that are related to thunderstorms, cold fronts, and tornadoes.