Understanding weather course: a pocket guide to life – 2021
Date/Time
Date(s) - 18 Mar 2021
6:30 pm - 8:30 pm
*The Full course and March session bookings are available at the bottom of this event. You can join the full course at any time – book at the bottom of this page, or ping Jeremy via the Contact Us form to join the eLearning fun!
This year-long online course is all about connecting our daily lived experiences of the weather with the patterns behind them and understanding how those patterns form. This is celebrated with exploring just how beautiful it is to watch the weather unfold across a day, week and year – check out the current synoptics below, care of the Windy website (a fantastic resource we’ll use during the course).
The intent for this course is that the discrete sessional learnings are coupled with self-guided work in between: basically, the more you delve into the content for yourself (with support & amongst good company), the deeper your understanding is likely to be.
Between sessions, interesting weather highlights (and the patterns generating them) will be shared to participants, via group email – these help train your eye to see the patterns flowing across the year.
For more on the course background and how it came to be, check out this interview with Jeremy, your meteorological interpreter for the course.
Course details:
6:30pm-8:30pm, Thursdays (the four dates below), online via Zoom. If that’s a difficulty, drop J a line to find another way.
Four sessions plus email updates between sessions (typically two or three… not Spam level quantities 🙂 )
$35/session or $140 the full course paid upfront (upfront payments earns a gift: a Cloud ID Selector (*link has audio), with support from the fabulous folks @ the Cloud Appreciation Society
Dates for 2021 (with each event link):
Thurs March 18th (nigh on Equinox)
Thurs June 17th (nigh on Winter solstice)
Thurs Sept 16th (nigh on Equinox)
Thurs Dec 16th (nigh on Summer solstice)
Course fees include:
- The four 2hr online group sessions
- A copy of the slides (pdf) and recorded video from each session, available after each session and forevermore
- Ongoing weather-of-interest-and-why updates (roughly 2-3 between sessions) via group email and in the community space
- Access to Understanding Weather resource library – inc. links to: free weather apps and websites (and basic how to use guides), resources for further learnings, weather afficionados etc.
- Lifetime membership to the WeatherKnurds Alumni 2021 group, for chatting all things meteorological together: this is hosted in Jeremy’s dedicated online community space, especially for all weather (and other) course Alumni.
Bare Minimum Learning Guarantee
My contract to you is that if after having attended the whole course (i.e at least the four evening sessions) that as a bare minimum you don’t feel you:
- can identify at least three cloud types (to genus if not species – see Course FAQ’s) and share a bit about them/how they form
- can describe the basics on how global weather patterns are formed
- can articulate the three main climate drivers for Australia and how they can affect our daily lived experience in Melbourne
- had a good time learning*
… then I will refund your course fee 100%. Yep, the whole damn lot. AND you can keep the gift. There will be a couple of questions asked, such as “what are your bank details?”, and “are you sure you didn’t have a good time…?”, but otherwise, that’s it. My contract to you. Why? Because if we can’t achieve at least the above points together then you shouldn’t be out of pocket, and I should go find something else to do.
*this guarantee does not cover the enjoyment or otherwise regarding my insert-adjective-here jokes; they are, however, guaranteed to occur 🙂
You can also read the Course FAQ’s here
Course content
Content includes the topics below (and more), nested in the context of connecting our lived experience to the pattens behind them and how to read them:
- global weather generation and patterns (i.e. Hadley cells and the like)
- the Coriolis Effect and why weather patterns spin different directions in different hemispheres
- ocean & land effects on weather generation, and how they differ
- El Niño & La Niña and their compatriots in Australia’s climate patterns
- how to read a synoptic chart and using other nifty weather tools
- exploring the 4-seasons-in-one-day commentary while considering how four seasons across the year doesn’t seem a very good fit for Melbourne
- Cloud types, how they form, and what they might indicate
- understanding Melbournian idiosyncrasies like: a temperature drop from 40C to 25C in 10mins on a hot February day, and the rain-sunshine-hail-sunshine experience of a wintry July afternoon
We’ll also utilise learning resources to help train your weather-eyes day to day, so you can become even more weather savvy.
So, if you’re up for a informative, fun, weather-filled year then sign up and we promise you’ll never see weather the same way again… yes, you too can become That Person in your social circle who is always yabbering on about high and low pressure systems, cloud formation and the likelihood (or not) of a hot, dry summer!
Here’s that stunning Windy website again, this time with the current temperatures forecast. (PS: press play… mesmerising!)
Bookings
Sorry! Bookings are closed for this event.