MetSoc Resources

Computers

MetSoc currently has use of five RM desktop computers to receive and analyse information from different sources. A Pentium II 400, running Windows 98, is attached to a WinSat satellite receiver which receives satellite images from a variety of satellites throughout the day, including Meteosat (Infrared) and NOAA ("visual") satellites. This information is also compiled as an animation of weather over the last 48 hours. Another Pentium 100 computer, running Windows 95, provides real-time local weather, interpreting information from an array of sensors mounted on the roof of the geography department. This also provides an archive of weather conditions, including rainfall, barometric pressure, sunshine hours and the times of sunrise and sunset. This can be exported to various formats, which are becoming available on the site

MetSoc also utilises a networked 200 MHz Pentium MMX running Windows 95 for word-processing and archival of forecasts on the school's main servers. This terminal is also used to compile portions of the geography department's website and is a multimedia center for the geography department. The other computers are also networked Pentium 100 machines running Windows 95 and are used for general word-processing and computing applications.

The Internet

MetSoc uses the Internet extensively to research global weather conditions in order to provide a more accurate local forecast. We have a compiled a hotlist of our favourite websites along with many useful educational websites through our links page below. We also use the Internet to examine synoptic charts and research weather facts from 'Almanac' websites.

The UK's Meteorological Office

The Met. Office has been one of MetSoc's primary sources for many years and remains so, even with the advent of the Internet. Every day, we receive a facsimile message from MetFax, a service which provides us with the forecasted synoptic chart for the next day. In addition, the automated telephone service provides us with additional information for the forecast if we are unable to glean it from the many sources that are available to us. Every year, the younger MetSoc members, accompanied by a few of the longer standing members, visit the Met. Office to see how a forecast is compiled, the wide variety of methods utilised and how a television forecast is produced as the final result. For many, the highlight is often seeing the two extremely powerful Cray T3E supercomputers. Their 1.5 TeraFlops (1.5 x 10¹² floating point operations per second) processing capacity is used to co-ordinate receipt of weather data from across the world and forecast the weather for up to three months ahead, though seeing them 'in the flesh', so to speak, belies their power.

MetSoc Website

The MetSoc website is constantly expanding. At the moment, we have a Hotlist of useful weather sites and, during term-time, a weekly retrospective of the weather is published by the younger members of the team. Eventually, weekly weather statistics for the local region will be made available for download for analysis.

Do you have any comments about the website? What would you like to see on the MetSoc area? Contact us through the link on the homepage.

Weather links | A summary of the week's weather | Weekly weather data