This tutorial from USA Today is actually pretty good for visualizing what a front looks like. It will not teach you to read the weather as a stand alone reference, but the visuals may be good to go back and look at when the other posts get confusing.

www.usatoday.com/weather/f...ystems.htm

Be sure to click on the links that further explain what the symbols mean, i.e.,

Low pressure area

High pressure area

Warm front

Cold front

Occluded front

Stationary front

Trough

My number one favorite book for weather reading using the five senses is

Basic Essentials Weather Forecasting (a Falcon Guide)
www.amazon.com/Basic-Esse.../ref=sr_1_1

I have also gotten some good stuff from:

Weather Wizard's Cloud Book
www.amazon.com/Weather-Wi.../ref=sr_1_1

Instant Weather Forecasting
www.amazon.com/Instant-We.../ref=sr_1_1

There is a lifetime of details to learn about weather, so you will never wear this hobby out. But you have to start somewhere, and if you only have time for one trick, learn this one. This is where I start with the students on my guided trips, and this trick alone allows them to frequently make accurate forecasts:

Stand with the wind at your back. If there is an incoming front, you are now facing it (the wind at your back is being sucked into this front, kind of like a whirlpool in the sky). Now look up at the clouds. If the clouds are moving left to right, you have an incoming warm front (low pressure systems always spin counter-clockwise). You can expect moister air and a good chance of precipitation. If the clouds are moving right to left, you have an incoming cold front (high pressure systems spin clockwise). There may be a squall line as it pushes out moister air (at the leading edge), but it should soon clear up for sunny days.

If the clouds overhead are going the same way as the wind at ground level, then you are not at the edge of a front and likely the weather will continue as it is for a while longer.

Common sense says that the faster the clouds are moving, the more often you should be checking.

Not all weather is created by fronts; geographic features (mountains, large bodies of water) also create their own local weather. But any of our ancestors could have read the sky and told you what to expect at least a day or two in advance. Most of us just don't bother to learn this stuff anymore.

When I assess weather, I picture an equation in my head:
Weather = W+C+BP/T
W = Wind
C = Clouds
BP = Barometric Pressure
T = Topography

Your local topography mitigates all other factors, and creates it' own weather in the absence of wind, clouds, or changes in pressure.

Changes in barometric pressure (air pressure) are the best clue you can have to changing weather. Barometric pressure is relative - it is not that a certain measurement always produces certain weather. Rather a change in pressure tells you that weather 'regime change' is nigh - your current system is being replaced by one of lower or higher pressure. Higher pressure means less likelihood of precipitation, lower pressure means more likelihood.

So without modern instruments, how can you read barometric pressure?

There are several ways, and most of them require you to acquaint yourself with the norms for your area, so you can notice changes. Changes are the key. Changes in your surroundings that are affected by pressure should tell you that the weather is changing.

* Old bone injuries - Bones heal stronger (denser) than before an injury. As a result, they will contract and expand unevenly with changes in pressure. This is why old injuries ache before it rains.

* Springs - springs are at a fairly consistent pressure underground, but will surface faster or slower as the air pressure changes.

* Smoke - smoke from your camp fire or chimney will rise straight up with high pressure; it will expand and stay low with low pressure. Obviously a high wind will make this harder to observe, but under the right circumstances, this can be a good clue.

* Coffee - remember the meniscus effect from chemistry class? the reason you always look carefully from the side of your measuring cup or beaker? Liquids climb the side of a container essentially through static cling. Their ability to climb the sides is greatly weakened by high air pressure. Coffee is a great way to observe this, but you could conceivably learn to notice changes in the meniscus effect with any liquid - you could even make your own measuring cup for the purpose (almost like a barometer!). Good strong coffee (not instant) has enough oil that the foam will slide around quite easily. If the meniscus effect is strong, the foam will rise to the edges of the cup along with it. If the meniscus effect is minimal, the foam will spread evenly across your cup.

* Smell - Ever notice how rich the air smells right before a storm? When you smell plants or soil, you are smelling molecules floating in the air. The lower the air pressure, the more of these molecules escape into the air.

I will try to add posts this week about Folk Lore (true and false) and Localized Weather (mountains, lake effect, etc.)

Meanwhile, if anyone else has tips to add, please share!

It occurs to me that all this talk of high pressure systems and cold fronts versus low pressure systems and warm fronts might get a little confusing, especially since the weather does not get consistently hot or cold. To make sense of it, pretend you are the weather satellite and picture what is happening (those USA Today links might help).

Prevailing winds in the northern hemisphere move west to east. So the 'fronts' of weather systems are approaching roughly west to east. These systems are huge and typically cover several states at once.

Since a low pressure system spins counter clockwise, the 'front' of this system will be pulling air from several states south of you into your area. Since high pressure systems spin clockwise, the 'front' will be pulling air from several states to the north. More often than not, this means the front of a high pressure system will be "cold" and the front of a low pressure system will be "warm", at least relative to what you had before it arrived.

I don't believe in memorizing dozens of cloud types; you will learn these in time as you hone your skills. To start with, there are really just a few you need to know, especially as they form the series that consistently precedes an incoming low pressure system.

To understand how and why this happens, those USA Today graphics might be useful. To put it in words, you should picture high pressure systems as dense, fast moving domes, while low pressure systems are warmer, mellower, but wetter.

When a low pressure systems runs into a high pressure system, it cannot easily shove the denser system out of the way. Instead it has to gently coax it. As it creeps in, it envelops it (picture pushing an overturned bowl with your feather duster). Because the low pressure system generally approaches with warmer wetter air, this air rises above the dome of denser, cooler air. It may take days for the low pressure system to displace the high.

What will this look like to you, on the ground, using just your senses? You will first see a few high wispy clouds (cirrus clouds, or "mare's tails"). Behind them, and just a bit lower, you will see a thin sheet of clouds, a sheet with thin spots, like an old worn blanket (stratus clouds, or "mackerel scales"). Behind these, if there is enough moisture, will come the darker thicker cumulus clouds that bring rain. Because the dome of air from the high pressure system is being displaced, the clouds get lower and lower. Sailors frequently talk of a front "lowering" as it approaches, and "lowering" is a sure sign of incoming weather. Because this series of clouds signifies warmer wetter air meeting cooler air, the warm air will be necessarily have its carrying capacity for water reduced, and it may well drop some water on you! Not all low pressure systems are equally wet, so this is all relative.

Now you may be wondering, what about when the opposite happens? What about when the high pressure system replaces the low pressure system? Will it be a mirror image? Not quite. Because the denser high pressure systems move faster, they don't coax - they slam into a low pressure system. The whole interaction is condensed in time, space, and is intensified. Instead of a series of cloud changes over 2-3 days, you could get a squall line of big anvil clouds (the dramatic cumulonimbus). These are your thunderstorms. They may be intense (and dangerous), but they will not last long. They are created at the front of a system that will normally bring clear weather - the clouds are actually created out of the moisture from the low pressure system, and the lighting is from the friction of the rapid collision.

So:
Cirrus --> Stratus --> Cumulus = incoming warm front/low pressure system
(you should see them moving left to right if you stand with your back to the wind).

If you are already in a low pressure system and it suddenly intensifies into big vertical clouds with severe storms, it may well be because a high pressure system is on its way and clearing everything out ahead of it.

Clouds can also be created by local topography, and I will talk about these in my next post.