Weatherfax - book to help interpret weatherfaxes

[scruff]

So following on from previous forum hits such as;

What to buy / How to set up SSB
HF/Shortwave Recievers for Weatherfax

and where/how to install arial;
SSB - Weatherfax Aerial placement

Now I need recommendations for interpreting the weather fax information. I have base knowledge (from old school days and more recently the YM course), but would like a well illustrated book (rather than heavy academic text book) to keep by the chart table to help interpret the information better, including and perhaps especially the 500hPa weather charts.

What would you recommend?

Thanks

 

[Bilgediver]

Have you done a search on Google. Here is lesson 1.


How to read synoptic weather charts

 

[DFL1010]

My goto recommendation for all things met is MetEd.

Covers most everything from the very basics to some quite specific use cases.

MetEd: Teaching and Training Resources for the Geoscience Community

 

[Bilgediver]

Also have a look at Grib files. They are similar but more detailed and can also show rain as well as cloud cover wind and more. These are used by many sailors and obtained in their case by short wave radio from dedicated servers however they can also be downloaded using devices with data and or WiFi . Using such as below.


Grib Files - PredictWind

 

[scruff]

Thanks all, I already know about fronts & isobars and how to read at a basic level. I also appreciate there are some useful online instructions, I was more looking for a book to keep by the chart table to help read more into the charts when the internet is not available. Perhaps the level of understanding I already hold will be sufficient for my needs.

 

[GHA]

Thanks all, I already know about fronts & isobars and how to read at a basic level. I also appreciate there are some useful online instructions, I was more looking for a book to keep by the chart table to help read more into the charts when the internet is not available. Perhaps the level of understanding I already hold will be sufficient for my needs.

Good chance you already know enough to visualize what's going on. Interesting free video series here if you need some distraction
Backyard Meteorology: The Science of Weather

what can be really helpful for practice imho is opencpn. You can view synoptics with the wfax plugin > Weather Fax Plugin
Guess what the wind will be doing around a front then overlay a grib file and see if the supercomputer agrees,

Also windy.com and other weather sites can be extremely valuable, with so many live spots available you can get a pretty good handle on what's going on in lots of places. Give it go, every day make a prediction from a synoptic somewhere then see how well you did from yesterdays guess
Not sure many people spend much time looking at the 500mB charts these days but they can be handy for a quick glance whats coming, the lows tend to track above the bold 564 line (this is where the pressure at 5640m is 500mB) , so a brief look at a weeks worth of 500mB charts can show in a moment a rough outline of what might happen - looks like any lows should track well north for a few days anyway, then maybe next wednesday or so anything coming across might go a bit lower.

The predictwind site has quite a nice display as well - PredictWind.com - The World Leader - Login

Over to you now, have a guess from the charts every morning over coffee and see what happens