Congratulations on a job well done ! For a week you all worked as a great team, observing and recording the weather in your area and showing how the sum of all those observations can lead to a pretty clear picture of the weather across the whole US. Your data even allowed me to create the weather summaries you'll read below.

So, here are plots of all your weather data along with actual satellite images and weather maps for each of the five days from April 15 through 19 as supplied to PTK by The Weather Channel. As you can see, the weather observations you made and the data you sent in corresponds well with the "official" data for these days.

I hope you all enjoyed this activity and enjoyed seeing how weather observation and forecasting requires a team effort. You were all part of a great team and again congratulations !

Monday, April 15

A low pressure system over the Great Lakes brought clouds and showers to much of the eastern third of the US while a cold front moving in from the Pacific did the same for the Pacific Northwest. In between, high pressure over Texas produced mostly sunny skies from the Rockies and the southwestern deserts eastward to the plains. The low and its cloud cover over the eastern US is about 1200 miles by 700 miles in size but that's tiny compared to some storms in the atmospheres of planets like Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune. (See your cloud cover chart and the weather map)

Meanwhile, the counterclockwise flow of air around the low over the Great Lakes brought warm air as far north as Ohio and Virginia and also cold air down into the western Great Lakes and northern plains. (See your temperature data)

The low pressure system and fronts that were over the Great Lakes and Ohio Valley yesterday have moved eastward but lots of clouds remain over the Great Lakes and have spread eastward with the low into New England along with rain and snow showers. The low out west is also moving east but continues to create showers in the northwest and even snow at higher altitudes. Meanwhile, high pressure along with sunny skies continues from the eastern Rockies to the northern plains and has spread over the southeast. (See the cloud cover chart and weather map)

Temperatures over the Great lakes continue cool on northerly winds behind the low but a warming trend is occurring on the western side of the high (because of mostly southerly winds) across the high plains. (See the temperature map)

The eastern low pressure system continues anchored just west of Maine and continues to bring cloudy and chilly weather to the Great Lakes and New England. Can this be spring? Meanwhile, a new low pressure system and front are beginning to move on to the west coast from the Pacific and bring ocean moisture in the form of clouds and showers on to the west coast. In addition, they are combining with another low over Wyoming to continue mostly cloudy conditions over the western quarter of the US. As the Pacific low moves east tomorrow, cloudy conditions might be expected to continue over the northwest.

Meanwhile, the center of the high pressure system that was over east Texas and Louisiana yesterday has slid eastward to Florida and clockwise winds off the back side of the high are spreading warm air as far north as North Dakota. We might expect these warmer temperatures to push eastward tomorrow. (Again, you can see all this from your cloud cover and temperature data)

Clockwise winds off the back side of high pressure which has now slid off the southeast coast have finally pushed warmer air and sunny skies northward to the Middle Atlantic States. (See cloud and temperature data)

Meanwhile, the low that came in off the Pacific yesterday has redeveloped over Utah. The result is mostly cloudy skies and scattered rain and snow showers over the northwestern part of the country again today. A low in the northern plains is pushing into the western Great Lakes and also producing showers there.

Sunny skies are found over the southwest along with warm temperatures.