ABSTRACT
The term “weather maps” in this chapter loosely refers to any cartographic depiction of weather or weather-related phenomena, including climatic maps. A map showing temperature and precipitation, the UV-index, an enhanced cloud cover image and an animation of the dynamics of the ozone layer all fit into this category. Although there is a broad range of cartographic weather depictions, most of them can be related to two main goals of meteorologists and other atmospheric scientists: diagnosis and/or prognosis. Weather maps that deal with diagnosis describe current and past conditions of the atmosphere, while the prognosis maps attempt to project past and current conditions and trends forward in time.
