Tropical Cyclones

International and National Organisations

• International Tropical Cyclone Center (US)
• Co-operative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies (US)

• Tornado and Storm Research Organisation (UK)

• Joint Typhoon Warning Center (US)
• Pacific Disaster Center (Hawaii)
• Tropical Cyclone Center (Hong Kong)
• Tropical Prediction Center (US)

• The Meteorological Office Tropical Cyclone Forecasting: Discusses research and development that have taken place in order to be able to improve predictions of tropical cyclones. Includes the trial of the forecasting system, information on the system and also it's performance since implementation. (UK)

• Hong Kong Observatory Information on Tropical Cyclones: An extremely informative resource providing a wide range of observations including:
 
• Tropical Cyclone Warning Bulletin
• Tropical Cyclone Track
• Hong Kong's Historical Calamitous Typhoons (Hong Kong)

Data/Information Libraries

Data Libraries

• National Climatic Data Center, Images/Movies of Hurricanes and Special Events: Excellent comprehensive image listing resource. Provides listings of various hurricanes, typhoons and tropical storms over time. (US)
• El Niño -Southern Oscillation Tropical Cyclone Climatology in the Pacific: Provides comprehensive information on storm tracks and storm frequency, the data is separated into specific time intervals and also locations. (Hawaii)
• Federal Emergency Management Agency Tropical Storm Watch: Provides comprehensive details of current tropical events and also holds a extremely detailed archive source. (US)
• University of Hawaii; Institute for Astronomy Tropical Storms, World-wide: Provides infomative data on current storm activity, world-wide storm track maps, and also an informative storm data archive. (Hawaii)

• The Meteorological Office Tropical Cyclone Information (UK)
 
• Tropical Cyclone Observed and Forecast Tracks: Informative data resource discussing the characteristics and effects of tropical cyclones in different regions of the world.
• Tropical Cyclone Forecasting Development: Illustrating the Met.Office's modelling programme to improve the predictions of tropical cyclone events.
• Tropical Cyclone Images and Movies: Contains a selection of images of tropical cyclones and the damage they can cause. GIF and MPEG viewers are required to view the images and movies.

• Taifun: Providing satellite imagery, wind analysis, MPEG satellite movies and sea surface temperatures relevant to the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific oceans. (US)
• USA Today Tropical Weather News: Comprehensive hurricane resource exclusive to the US, provides warnings, strike odds and storm surges. (US)
• WeatherNet Tropical Weather Page: Provides detailed maps and satellite imagery for both Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. Also provides tropical weather reports and forecasts and most importantly an informative hurricane tracker. (US)

Educational/On-line Courses

Lecture Aids

• Bryan Farr Tropical Cyclone Facts and Figures: An informative introductory resource introducing concepts such as tropical definitions, characteristics of storms and formation areas. (US)
• University of Michigan Frequently Asked Questions: Provides definitions, basic questions and basin information relating to hurricanes, typhoons and tropical cyclones. The resource begins with introductory topics such as What is a hurricane, typhoon, or tropical cyclone? and progresses to more in-depth topics such as How does the damage that hurricanes cause increase as a function of wind speed?. (US)

• Bryan Farr Tropical Cyclone Facts and Figures: An informative introductory resource introducing concepts such as storm development criteria, storm dissipation and storm formation. (US)
• University of Illinois, WW2010 Midlatitude Cyclones:
 
• Definition of a Cyclone: Simple explanation of cyclones including the use of models and illustrations, suitable for undergraduate use.
• Winds Associated With a Cyclone: Simple explanation discussing low pressure centres and wire barbs, uses graphics to present the information clearly.
• Air Masses and Cyclones: Simple introductory explanation referring to warm and cold fronts, and also to locations of various air masses.
• Cyclones on Satellite Images: Discusses cyclonic satellite pictures illustrating the cyclone as a comma-shaped cloud configuration. A useful quicktime movie can be found on this site.
• Upper Air Features: Introductory resource discussing cyclones, anticyclones, troughs and ridges. Using satellite imagery to demonstrate the principles mentioned. (US)

• Hong Kong Observatory Information on Tropical Cyclones: An extremely informative resource providing a wide range of information including:
 
• Classification of Tropical Cyclones: A brief classification of tropical cyclones according to wind speed.
• Nature and Structure of Tropical Cyclones: A detailed photographic essay discussing tropical cyclones and their nature includes computer graphics, illustrations and photographs.
• Economic and Social Effects of Tropical Cyclones: Discusses the negative and positive aspects of tropical cyclones in terms of economics and social relations. (Hong Kong)

Electronic Journals

• The Meteorological Office Tropical Cyclone Bulletin: Provides free access to monthly and seasonal bulletins and also cyclone activity graphs. (UK)

• Hong Kong Observatory Tropical Cyclones: A summary of the contents of the yearly publication is provided at this source, for full text versions subscription is required. (Hong Kong)

Hurricanes

International and National Organisations

• International Tropical Cyclone Center (US)

• NOAA Central Pacific Hurricane Center (US)
• NOAA National Hurricane Center (US)
• Pacific Disaster Center (Hawaii)

• Lowe, Storm 98 Hurricane Central: Provides comprehensive details about hurricanes; discussing interactive storms with animated graphics and season's gone by, listing some of the worst storms in history. (US)
• NOAA Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory: Research relevant to many aspects of climate dynamics, but with a special section referring to hurricane dynamics. (US)
• NOAA Hurricane Research Division: Improves understandings of structure and dynamics of tropical cyclones, and also produces a comprehensive hurricane field programme, researching into many aspects of hurricanes and hurricane formation. (US)

Data/Information Libraries

• National Hurricane Center (US)
 
• Past Hurricane History: Holds hurricane and storm reports relevant to the Atlantic and the Pacific from previous years, also holds a directory of storms occurring in each year.
• The Deadliest Atlantic Tropical Cyclones, 1492 - Present: Provide hurricane information relating to the number of deaths caused by each hurricane, tropical cyclone terminology and storm lists & statistics.
• The Deadliest Hurricanes In The United States 1900-1996:Ranks US hurricanes against each other in terms of deaths and magnitude, using the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale.
• Amigos de Baja's Tropical Hurricane Center: Provides global storm information, hurricane facts and figures; based mainly on Mexico. (Mexico)
• NOAA GOES Imagery, Hurricanes: Provides current imagery and also hurricane imagery archives are accessible. (US)
• NOAA Hurricane & Storm Tracking: Holds current and historic hurricane plots and data and also provides detailed information and warnings of all tropical storm phenomena. (US)
• Storm 98 About Hurricanes: Provides interactive storms holding animated graphics and also details of past storms and the worst of these. (US)

Educational/On-line courses

• University of Illinois, WW2010 Hurricanes: A set of introductory undergraduate resources outlining the nature and characteristics of hurricanes. (US)
 
• Definition of Hurricane: Simple introductory resource defining the main characteristics of hurricanes and discussing convective processes using illustrations and photographs.
• How They Are Named: Discusses the varying names hurricanes are known by throughout different regions in the world.
• Movement: Simple introductory resource using illustration to aid discussions of polar easterlies, prevailing westerlies and tropical easterlies.
• Convective Processes: Discusses how convective processes are relevant to the formation of hurricanes, and provides simple but effective animations to demonstrate the discussion put forward.
• Development Stages: Provides step by step discussions and illustrations explaining the development of a hurricane from a tropical depression.
• Destruction: Simple resource studying damage observed by hurricanes of different wind speeds. Tornadoes, flooding and storm surges are also noted.
• NASA, Classroom of the future Hurricanes: Provides detailed background information, team tracking previews and hurricane tracking information.
• National Weather Service, Interactive Weather Information Network Hurricane Animation: Provides a detailed example of hurricane formation and characteristics. (US)
• Pacific Disaster Center Hurricane Information (Hawaii)
 
• What is a Hurricane?: Defines what makes a tropical disturbance, depression, storm, cyclone or hurricane.
• Hurricane Categories: Provides a category system relating to hurricanes. The scale uses characteristics such as barometric pressure, wind speed, storm surge and damage potential to determine categories.
• Hurricane Winds: Provides a detailed insight into hurricane breeding grounds, the role of winds, the eye of a hurricane and also tropical cyclones.
• Storm Surge: Discusses general information relating to storm surge formation and storm tides.
• Hurricane Related Terms: An informative glossary of hurricane related terms.

• Weathereye 13 Handle a Hurricane: An simplistic interactive case study, the students make decisions on how to react to a hurricane, looking at safety, time and expense. (US)

Electronic Journals

• The Meteorological Office Tropical Cyclone Bulletin: Provides free access to monthly and seasonal bulletins and also cyclone activity graphs. (UK)

• Hong Kong Observatory Tropical Cyclones: A summary of the contents of the yearly publication is provided at this source, for full text versions subscription is required. (Hong Kong)

Thunderstorms

International and National Organisations

• Tornado and Storm Research Organisation (UK)

• Illinois Emergency Management Agency (US)
• NOAA, National Weather Service Interactive Weather Information Network (US)
• Texas Severe Storms Association (US)

• NOAA National Severe Storms Laboratory: Provides two notable research divisions:
• Mesoscale Research and Applications Division: Conducts basic and applied research leading to the improvement of forecast services within the National Weather Service (NWS) for large-scale (mesoscale) severe weather events.
• Stormscale Research and Applications Division: Developing and transferring applications, techniques, and new scientific understandings to the NWS and other customers to enhance the capability to provide short-term predictions and warnings of hazardous weather. (US)
• NOAA Storm Prediction Center: Monitors and forecasts severe and non-severe thunderstorms, tornadoes, winter storms, extreme winds, heavy rain and other hazardous weather phenomena across the continental US. (US)

Data/Information Libraries

• TORRO Severe Storm Classification: Defining a severe thunderstorm, severe local storm and also classifying whirlwinds. (UK)

• NOAA Storm Prediction Center: Monitors and forecasts severe and non-severe thunderstorms, tornadoes, winter storms, extreme winds, heavy rain and other hazardous weather phenomena across the continental US. (US)
 
• Severe Storms Statistics: Provides details of recent weather, tornado and thunderstorm reports. Also holds comprehensive tornado statistics.
• USA Today Thunderstorm Information: Provides information on various aspects of thunderstorms, thunderstorm precipitation, thunderstorm winds and thunderstorm climatology. (US)

Educational/On-line courses

• National Severe Storms Laboratory Weather Room; Thunderstorms: Introductory resource discussing aspects relating to thunderstorms such as formation, detection, damage and pressure changes. (US)
• University of Illinois, WW2010 A look at Thunderstorms (US)
 
• Dangers of Thunderstorms: Detailed photographic essay reviewing the destructive and deadly thunderstorm elements such as lightning, flash floods, hail, outflow, downbursts and tornadoes.
• Types of Thunderstorms: Detailed photographic essay discussing storm spectrum and single cell, multicell and supercell thunderstorms.
• Components of Thunderstorms: Detailed photographic essay referring to updrafts, downdrafts, wind shear, outflow and wall clouds.
• Tornadoes: Detailed photographic essay discussing low level flow, tornado evolution and cyclic storms.
• Weather.com;Storm Encyclopaedia: Some useful general information but many areas specific to the US. (US)
 
• Severe Thunderstorms
 
• Thunderstorm Formation: Photographic essay discussing aspects such as multicell thunderstorms and severe thunderstorms.
• Thunderstorm Research: Discussing the recent changes in thunderstorm research, in relation to important storm research organisations.
• Forecasting Thunderstorms: Photographic essay referring to storm predictability and storm instability.
• Thunderstorm Climatology:Photographic essay studying air mass thunderstorms and frontal thunderstorms.
• Historical Thunderstorms: Studies the crash of flight 707 and the costliest severe thunderstorm in history.
• Winter Storms
 
• How Storms Form: Photographic essay studying precipitation, development, low pressure systems, warm and cold fronts.
• Types of Storms: This section is of limited use as it is specific to the nature of winter storms in various regions of the US.
• Wintertime Forecasting: Refers to the use of computer models, radar, satellite, upper air observations and methods of tracking winter storms.
• Wintertime Climatology: Studying Upsloping weather and overrunning, refers to blizzards and alternative characteristics.
• Historical Winter Storms: Provides comprehensive case studies of the US's worst winter storms.
• University of Illinois WW2010 Superstorm '93 Case study: Simplistic storm case study providing archives, simple activities and data collection. (US)

Electronic Journals

• NOAA Storm Prediction Center; Publications: Comprehensive listings of articles written by members of the storm prediction Center. Full text versions are available, includes graphics. (US)
• Storm Track: Provides documents, letters, photographs and storm chase information. For access to published articles, subscription is needed. (US)

Lightning

International and National Organisations

• Tornado and Storm Research Organisation (UK)

• National Lightning Safety Institute (US)
• Society of Atmospheric Electricity of Japan (Japan)

• Lightning Research Center: Studying parameters of the lightning discharge that are considered important for lightning protection, modelling of the lightning return stroke and also lightning-induced voltages on power distribution lines. (US)
• NASA, Global Hydrology and Climate Center Lightning and Atmospheric Electricity Research (US)
 
• Lightning Primer: Discusses various answers gained from research at the Center, for example types of lightning discharges, lightning detection networks and the global electric circuit.
• Space Based Research: Provides comprehensive details of research taking place, such as the optical transient detector, lightning imaging sensor and lightning mapper sensor.
• Field Campaigns and Ground Validation: Holds details of lightning campaigns, lightning detection instruments and research proposal information.
• Osaka University Lightning Research Group: Holds detailed descriptions of projects undertaken, such as triggered lightning, Safir operation and the Australian sprites gallery. (Japan)
• University of Illinois Lightning Injury Research:Comprehensive resource looking from a "Consequences of Lightning" perspective. Provides lightning injury facts, psychological effects and safety guidelines. (US)

Data/Information Libraries

• Tornado and Storm Research Organisation, Severe Weather Photographic Collections Lightning: Three photographs of an active lightning core in Marden, Kent in 1987. (UK)

• NASA, Lightning and Atmospheric Electricity Research Dataset Information: Data such as infra- red, radar and sensed data are freely available when ordered. Most datasets are available in several media forms, including digital tape and ftp download, and are available in compressed or uncompressed formats.(US)
• NOAA National Weather Service Thunder/Lightning: Facts and figures relating to thunderstorms, thunder and lightning. Characteristics of thunderstorms and lightning are also detailed comprehensively. (US)
• Stephen M. Brincat Lightning Photography: Provides a number of lightning images from the two fairly recent years of1996 and 1997. The resource also shows different types of lightning. (Malta)
• Storm 98 The Lightning Stalker: Provides an informative resource all about lightning. Also provides a interesting and useful photo gallery and also video action. (US)
• USA Today Lightning information index:Providing information on a range of lightning topics such as lightning forms and how lightning reaches the ground. An extremely useful resource is the anatomy of a lightning stroke. (US)

Educational/On-line courses

• EES Group Lightning...what is it?: Discusses what actually happens during a lightning strike and also common misconceptions. (UK)

• NASA, Global Hydrology and Climate Center Lightning and Atmospheric Electricity Research: Comprehensive resource suitable for in-depth studies of thunderstorms and lightning characteristics.
• Lightning Primer: The lightning primer discusses:
 
• Storm characteristics:Introduces a background to theories of lightning, and provides a context from which to study lightning more in-depth.
• Types of lightning discharge: Uses illustrations and text to provide a comprehensive resource discussing cloud-ground, inter-cloud and intra-cloud lightning. Also holds a section on lightning discharge processes.
• Lightning investigations: Details lightning investigations using rockets, high altitude aeroplanes and spacecraft; uses a mixture of photos, illustrations and text.
• Lightning detection networks: Short section detailing the ground based detection network being used in the US.
• Global Studies & The global electric circuit: Two brief sections detailing global trends of lightning effects on different layers of the earth.
• NASA Windows to the Universe, Earth; Lightning and Thunder: Provides an extremely simple introductory resource detailing thunderstorms, lightning and hail. Main sections include:
 
• Lightning formation
• Sound waves versus light waves
• Types of Lightning
• WW2010, Severe Thunderstorms Dangers of Thunderstorms: Provides an introduction to the dangers brought by thunderstorms, lightning, flash floods and hail, outflow, downbursts and tornadoes. (US)

Electronic Journals

• American Meteorology Society Journals Online: Title and author details are freely available as are abstracts, but for print versions or full text versions, subscription is required. It is possible to search the site for precise articles. (US)
• Journal of Geophysical Research: Article titles, authors and abstracts are freely available, but subscription is needed for full access. (US)
• NASA & University of Alabama Atmospheric Electricity and Charge Microphysics Bibliography: The editors list of articles relevant to studying atmospheric electricity, abstracts available as well as titles and authors. (US)

Tornado's

International and National Organisations

• Tornado and Storm Research Organisation (UK)

• Tornado and Storm Research Organisation:Discusses the nature of TORRO's current and on-going research, and also on-going data collection and research projects being carried out by the organisation. (UK)

• Tornado and Storm Research Organisation (UK)
 
• Sferic Location (SFLOC) Data & Information: Provides current and recent data for Europe and elsewhere. Also provides data archives.
• Storm Chasing: Provides general information on storm chasing, and then more specific information for storm chasing in the UK.
• Severe Weather Photographic Collections: Large listing of photo archives from organisations and individuals; Relevant archives are listed below:
 
• Tornado Outbreak in south-western Dyfed, March 3, 1991
• The Tywyn (Gwynedd) Tornado, January 21, 1995
• The Selsey (West Sussex) Tornado, January 7, 1998

• NOAA Fujita Tornado Intensity Scale: Provides descriptions and windspeeds for classification of tornado's. (US)
• NOAA, National Climatic Data Center Storm Images:Comprehensive imaging illustrating infrared and visible images, and also MPEG movies. (US)
• NOAA, Storm Prediction Center (US)
 
• Historical Tornado Data Archive:Provides details of HTML documents, graphs and charts and HTML data specific to the study of tornado's.
• 1998 Deadly Tornado Statistics: Simple listing of the killer tornado's that have occurred in 1998.
• USA Today Tornado Information Index: Holds a large variety of resources, the most useful are found to be: (US)
 
• Watches and warnings
• Latest tornado news
• Basics of tornado science
• Frequently asked questions

Educational/On-line courses

• Richard Bedard Tornado Museum!:An educational look at the most violent storm on earth for its size, the tornado, providing images and notes. (US)
• The Oakfield, Wisconsin Tornado Case Study: Provides a general cyclone overview, analysis of surface and upper-air data, satellite images and references to the dopplar radar. Using graphics, images and text. (US)
• University of Illinois, WW2010 A look at Thunderstorms (US)
 
• Tornadoes: Detailed photographic essay discussing low level flow, tornado evolution and cyclic storms.
• Weathereye 13 Tornado's (US)
 
• What are tornadoes?: Simply introduces the nature and characteristics of tornado's.
• Tornado Energy:Simply discusses tornado's and the energy involved in the process.
• Tornado Prediction: Discussing poor prediction techniques, using illustrations and photographs.
• Protect Yourself: What are safe measures to take when found in the middle of a tornado?

Electronic Journals

• The Journal Of Meteorology: Lists articles and authors, subscription is required for full text versions. (UK)

• Storm Track: Provides documents, letters, photographs and storm chase information. For access to published articles, subscription is needed. (US)