A long time back I was searching for a website that featured the local weather. There were many to choose from and so I tried each one out. Because I live on an island, and can go to virtually any point on it, days out might have stormy, wet weather on one side, while on the other it could be nearly calm and dry. So it's good to know.
The Weather Channel never really covers the weather on the island chain of Hawaii so you have to get local weather, and the best one I've found is one that I tell everybody about, and that is a simple site called Glenns Daily Weather Narrative. If you want to know what is going on weather wise 'roun here and why, this is the site to peruse.
It's put out daily by a guy that knows his stuff and though I've tried for years to understand things he writes about called 'trough's and 'ridge's and other stuff I still don't quite get it because those things are invisible- plus they interact. I have seen evidence of them in cloud formations though, and can at least understand the basics of why it's raining and humid or partly cloudy and dry and all that.
Trade wind direction
Jordan Ladikos- Unsplash.com
Anyway, what I discovered through this site is a thing called the World Wind Map. You can find it at earth.nullschool.net. Wind speeds and directions are shown in real time on a rotatable and zoomable map of the earth. This thing is fascinating to look at, you could hang it on the wall like it's moving art. Over the last few years I have tracked hurricanes, cold fronts, high pressure systems, and the like. I have also found out things about the earth that I didn't know existed:
There are almost always thunderstorms just south of us in a belt that extends along the equator.
The southern hemisphere's seas are windy. A series of storms continuously circumnavigate the south pole because there is no landmass to disrupt them. If I were a sailor, I would avoid the southern hemisphere's oceans.
There's almost always a low pressure system in the Gulf of Alaska.
It's at least twice as windy on the open ocean than it is on land. Rarely is the wind on land moving at 20 mph, but on the ocean it's common.
The World Wind Map displays in real time, all the time. Scientists put this thing together, I’m sure, because the technology was there and they wanted to know. For them it must have been a real eye opener. And thanks to their (and Glenns’) scientific bent, I was able to discover something that I never knew existed. But scientists measure far more than just the wind. There are a few other maps to peruse on Glenns’ site, and I think with a little search engine work you could find numerous other real time maps on the internet.
Climate data is at these scientists' fingertips so I know they are tracking any anomalies. If they say the earth is warmer than it was twenty years ago I would be inclined to believe them, because they are tracking and charting so many things, quite fastidiously.
Just sayin'