Severe Weather Course for Amateur Scientists

Weather and climate are of high interest to many amateur scientists, including The Citizen Scientist contributors George Hrabovsky and Mark Langford. In the United States more than 10,000 citizens serve as Cooperative Weather Observers for the National Weather Service.

Professional meteorologist Pete Wolf has developed Storm-Prep, an economical online course for amateur scientists and others interested in learning to interpret online weather data. The course is called “Anticipating, Recognizing, and Preparing For Deadly Weather.” It's cost is $39, which is less than the price of a typical meteorology text book.

According to information received from Wolf, "real-time weather data can be accessed on-line at no cost, but without any instruction regarding data interpretation. This course provides that instruction. It teaches a skill that anyone can learn, and promotes a beneficial real-time Internet application.” According to Wolf, the course focuses on tornadoes, large hail, damaging winds, floods, lightning, hurricanes and tropical storms, winter storms, dense fog, and extreme heat and cold.

According to the Storm-Prep web site, the course comes with these three additional courses:

• "Radar Imagery Interpretation" ...a basic illustration-filled course on how radar images are produced, the issues associated with image accuracy and interpretation accuracy, and the features that weather radar can detect.
• "Satellite Imagery Interpretation "...a basic illustration-filled course on how satellite images are produced, the issues associated with image accuracy and interpretation accuracy, and the features that can be seen on weather satellite imagery.
• "Amateur Weatherman "...an introductory-level course on weather observation and forecasting, demonstrating how to use real-time data online to anticipate hazardous weather.

Besides 20 years as a professional meteorologist, Pete Wolf has received many awards for his educational and training work, including a Department of Commerce Bronze Medal for severe weather training material developed for meteorologists nationwide and a NOAA Administrator’s Award for his service on the national Storm-Based Warning” team.

Forrest M. Mims III