Anticyclones in the UK
In the UK and much of western Europe, high pressure dominated through the spring of 2020, giving us clear skies and record breaking sunshine hours, giving way to some more …
Course: Come Rain or Shine: Understanding the Weather
Welcome to Week 3
Welcome to Week 3 of Come Rain or Shine: Understanding the Weather. In the previous two weeks, we looked at the UK’s characteristic weather patterns including the low pressure weather …
Welcome to Week 5
Welcome to the final week of Come Rain or Shine: Understanding the Weather. Last week we learnt the Earth’s climate is determined by the balance between energy absorbed and energy …
Review and reflect
Congratulations on completing Week 4. This week, we moved from UK weather to explore some of the weather patterns in the Tropics. You should now feel more comfortable: explaining how …
The occluded front
Let’s return to the four stages of a depression you explored in Step 1.9. Remember that the grey shading shows the region of continuous cloud cover. The red warm front …
Will it snow?
In this activity, you’ll be looking at the factors which determine whether a mid-latitude country gets snow. By looking at various charts, you’ll be able to see whether anywhere in …
The weather game
We’d like you to have a go at trying to predict the weather in our weather game. Don’t worry if you don’t know anything about forecasting the weather yet! Why …
A note for teachers and students
This course is for everyone who has an interest in learning more about weather across the world. However, there are certain sections in the course which may be particularly useful …
A case study of orographic rain
We’re now going to show you a case study of orographic rain through a series of different figures including a weather map, satellite image and precipitation map. By looking at …
Spotting features on a weather map
How are you getting along with the Week so far? In this and the next Step we’ve provided two different exercises to help you test what you’ve just learnt about …
Welcome to Week 1
Welcome to Come Rain or Shine: Understanding the Weather, a free online course produced by the Department of Meteorology at the University of Reading and The Royal Meteorological Society. The …
Welcome to Week 3
Welcome back to your final week of ‘Come Rain or Shine: Understanding the Weather’. In Weeks 1 and 2 you explored the weather systems experienced within the mid-latitudes, particularly focusing …
Challenge Yourself
We hope you’re enjoying the course so far. Now we’ve got your attention, for those looking for something a bit more challenging we have gathered some extra material which you …
Welcome to Week 2
This week we continue to look at the weather patterns based in the Mid-Latitudes, still focusing on the UK. In the video, Sylvia outlines this week’s topics and introduces you …
How does this compare to Mars?
Many scientists have studied Mars and its atmosphere is well understood. Although it’s only around half the size of the Earth, with no oceans and a thin atmosphere composed almost …