Synoptic Meteorology

Synoptic Meteorology -- (n.) - the presentation of the current weather elements of an extensive area at a particular time
(n.) - senior meteorology class at the University of South Alabama, taught by Dr. Blackwell

If you have kept up with my blog then you know that I am taking Synoptic 1 this semester and let go on the record saying that its the craziest class in the world!

The class is a six-hour credit class and it deserves that many credits. Here is a breakdown of the class...

The lecture for the class is Tuesdays & Thursdays from 11:00 AM - 12:15 PM and the lab is Tuesday, Wednesday, & Thursday 2:00 PM - 4:05 PM. Each week we get a city selected by Dr. Blackwell in which we forecast for. The city that Dr. Blackwell usually chooses has some type of weather event happening. We have forecasted all over the place including but not limited to: Portland, Maine; Washington DC; Topeka Kansas; & New Orleans, LA. During lab between 2:00 - 3:15 we do the foreasting for the city. We forecast for the 500 mb and 850 mb level and then various items at the surface (such as temp, surface pressure, wind direction & speed, etc.). We forecast 24 hours out from the day of the forecasting.

From 3:15 to 4:05 we listen to a weather briefing done by one classmate, one each lab. The briefing is between 11 to 14 minutes. It analyzes what is going on at the time of the briefing and twelve hours before, and then the forecast for the next 24 hours. After the briefing there is a question time in which other classmates can ask questions about the briefing. Participation is required and if a student doesn't ask a question then points are taken off of their final grade. Once the questions are done then Dr. Blackwell asks questions for about 20 minutes. After the briefing the briefer is debriefed and the grade is given. Each person in class does 3 briefings each semester.

So that is the lecture and lab procedures. Outside of lecture and labs we are given various assignments. We are given things called COMET Modules. These are web-based assignments about a certain topic in which we have to listen to a male/female talk about that topic and then take a quiz about that topic and send the results to Dr. Blackwell. We also get smaller assignments given out about the topics we cover in lecture.

The last assignment we do outside of class are case studies. These are very horrible and take a lot of time. They are huge weather maps (5 total) and each map we certain analyses that we have to do. We get two installments each semester and they are worth 20% of the final grade. The first installment has already be done and a blog post about those will be posted soon.

That is synoptic meteorology course for you. One very crazy course but I have made some pretty cool friends in the class...we have a blast!!

Ugh

So I know that i haven't posted a blog post in quite some time....my fault, well not really. It is school's fault. As most of my blog post have said this semester, I have been pretty busy. However things are slowly calming down and changes are about to take place from now through next semester. For example, as of right now I am going to be sleeping in on Saturday and I don't remember the last time that happened!!

Also for next semester I have learned that I need to drop a few things as I have WAY too much going on in my life. I am weighing everything and deciding on what needs to be drop. So yeah. There you go. For those who read my blog this is just something small that you can read and to wait for the next post.

Until next time....