INTERPRETING YOUR DATA
Weather Project Under construction: Other sites will be added soon.

The Results section of your paper should cover what happened - what changes in temperature did you observe? did it rain? was it cloudy? was there cloud on the satellite images? what high or low pressure systems were in the Midwest? what fronts passed through Bloomington? It is very important that you refer to your figures or tables to illustrate the phenomena you describe.

The Interpretation section of your paper should should link these results together and discuss why the weather you observed might have happened - e.g. the temperature decreased because a cold front moved through; the temperature increased from 8am to noon because of solar radiation; the clear skies were associated with a high pressure system, etc. Again, the images you collected from the web provide the evidence for your interpretations. You must refer to your figures or tables.

The following are some things that you might discuss in the Interpretation section of your paper.  You don't necessarily need to discuss all of these (and some of these might not be relevant to your data) and there may be other things to discuss that are not listed here.

DAILY CHANGES IN WEATHER AT BLOOMINGTON

  • What diurnal pattern do you expect temperature to have? Why?
  • What diurnal pattern do you expect humidity to have? Why?
  • Did your data have these patterns? Why or why not? Think about pressure systems, air masses, passage of fronts, clouds that might have moved into or out of the area, precipitation that occurred, etc.

DIFFERENCES IN WEATHER AT BLOOMINGTON VS. INDIANAPOLIS

  • Do you expect Bloomington and Indianapolis to have similar weather events?
  • Are your data from Bloomington similar or different from the Indianapolis (meteogram) data?
  • If they are different, why might this be? Think about frontal passages, location of high or low pressure systems relative to each city, etc.

HIGH AND LOW PRESSURE SYSTEMS

  • Explanation
  • Was there a high or low pressure system in the Midwest during your observation period?
  • What type of weather would you expect in Bloomington because of this?
    • Clear or cloudy skies?
    • Wind direction (counterclockwise around a low, clockwise around a high)?

FRONTS

  • Explanation
  • What type(s) of fronts passed through Bloomington during your observation period?
  • What weather would you expect with that type of front? Did you observe these weather changes?
    • Change in temperature? Increase or decrease?
    • Presence of clouds? Sequence of cloud types?
    • Precipitation? Change in intensity of precipitation?
    • Change in wind direction?
    • Change in dew point?
    • Change in pressure?
  • If there were multiple fronts, were they part of a mid-latitude cyclone?