Weather Symbols - What's that "S" with the arrow through it?

Those of you interested in weather will want to learn the 100 weather symbols used today in meteorology. You might recognize some of the more common ones and there will be others that are unfamiliar. 

Here is a great list of those symbols by the National Weather Service's JetStream - Online School for Weather. Click here: Weather Symbols.

Weather symbols have been used by meteorologists for many years on surface weather maps, often seen at station weather plots. Click here: Weather Maps.

So the next time you see a comma or set of periods you might think punctuation, but then again you just might think precipitation! By the way, that "S" with the arrow through it . . . that's a moderate duststorm.

The "Total SWE Monday" Habit . . . Please give it a try!

The National Operational Hydrologic Remote Sensing Center utilizes CoCoRaHS reports of precipitation, snowfall, snow depth and the water equivalent of the snow on the ground every day. CoCoRaHS data provide critical "Ground Truth" information that can improve the skill of their products and models. This will improve the accuracy of flood forecasts in the weeks and months ahead. Click here to see how your CoCoRaHS SWE Reports are used by NOHRSC

Their guidance to us has been that if you can only report one day a week it’s best to all report on the same day. Monday was chosen:

"The analysts at NOHRSC prefer a Total Snow Water Equivalent (SWE) observation taken once a week on Monday. The simple reason is that digging cores every day ruins your sample snowfield area (unless you have a big yard or open fields nearby).

A flood of Monday morning SWE reports gives us a better picture of the overall snowpack instead of a few scattered results trickling in throughout the week. Daily total SWE would be great, but let's make "Total SWE Monday" a habit.

(Note: If you have the room, more frequent observations are appreciated, especially when conditions are changing. For areas that only infrequently get snow, there is no need to wait for Monday -- report SWE whenever you have the chance). For instructions on how to take core samples and report the snowpack SWE, please view our on-line training materials on snow: Training Slide Shows or watch the YouTube short animation on: SWE.