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Description

Find your inner weather forecaster as scouts get stuck into deciphering a synoptic weather map

Resources

Scrap paper
Pens or pencils
Something to mark lines (for example, chalk, masking tape, or rope)

Instructions

The person leading the activity should mark a large image of the UK on the floor using chalk, masking tape, or rope.
Everyone should split into groups of four or five people.
The person leading the activity should give each group a weather feature to represent: some should be isobars, some cold fronts, and some warm fronts.
Everyone should work together to fit everyone on the map. People may like to hold hands on link arms to create the line of their feature.
People might also like to get creative: weather fronts could make triangles or semi-circles with their hands, for example.
The person leading the activity should explain what each feature means, what it does, and how it behaves in different weather forecasts.
Then should call out different weather changes, and everyone on the map should move to reflect the changes.
For example, if the person leading the activity calls ‘high winds’, the isobar groups would move closer together. If they called ‘warm front moving in from the east’, the warm front would move.
After a while, the groups should swap weather features so they get a turn at moving in a different way. Keep playing until everyone understands the different features.

Add extra features
For example:
Low pressure. Areas of low pressure are marked by a cross and the letter ‘L’. There’s usually a number showing the atmospheric pressure too. You’d expect to see wet and windy weather in areas of low pressure.
High pressure. Areas of high pressure are marked by a cross and the letter ‘H’. You’d expect to see dry and sunny weather in areas of high pressure.
Occluded front. Occluded fronts are shown with a purple line that has both semi-circles and triangles on it. They show when a faster-moving cold front catches up to a warm front.
Warm sector. Warm sectors are created when air gets trapped between a warm front and a faster-moving cold front behind it. You’d expect to see low cloud and patchy rain in a warm sector.
Trough. Troughs are marked by black lines with no shapes. They show areas where the air’s unstable and moves around a lot – you’d expect to see showers.

Create your forecast
Everyone should split into small groups. Each group should grab some scrap paper, a pen or pencil, and a copy of the surface weather charts.
Each group should choose a location on the chart and make a note of what can they see. What weather fronts are passing? What do the isobars and other features look like?
It’s up to them what they choose: they could choose the whole of the UK or a different part of the world.
Each group should think about the weather they’d expect to see based on the chart, and jot it down.
Each group should work together to write a short script that summarises their weather forecast. They should aim for it to last about a minute.
If you’ve got internet access, people could watch a couple of examples, such as the BBC’s daily forecast. It might be helpful to see what sort of information the professionals include and the kind of language the presenters use.
Everyone should spend some time practising their forecasts.
Once everyone’s ready, they should join back together. Groups should take it in turns to present their forecasts.

Tags

• Meteorologist
• Meteorology
• Synoptic Maps
• weather
• weather front

Badge Links

• Meteorologist - Air masses
• Meteorologist - Forecasts
• Meteorologist - Maps