ABSTRACT
This chapter describes how an expert learned to perceive patterns in the weather satellite images used in forecasting, and commonly seen on televised weather broadcasts. A great many forecasters—old-schoolers who began in the days of hand chart analysis and witnessed the advent of weather satellite imagery—have spent decades interpreting images. The jet stream is often quite evident in weather satellite images. It can appear as a meandering band of bright clouds in all three types of imagery—visible, infrared, and water vapor. Meteorologists have discovered an array of additional patterns in satellite imagery. While satellite imagery may begin to help us understand these, the data record is incomplete, at best. The jet stream leaves its footprint on both weather charts and satellite imagery High and low pressure systems, upper-air disturbances, the list goes on and on—these are things that can be perceived in the images, but cannot be seen in the images.
