A strong wind characterized by a sudden onset, a duration on the order of minutes, and a rather sudden decrease in speed.

A type of atmometer. It is a pan used in the measurement of the evaporation of water into the atmosphere. The NWS Class A pan is a cylindrical container 48 inches in diameter and 10 inches deep.

The meteorological visual range, which can be estimated from the average extinction coefficient using the Koschmieder equation.

An anemometer which measures wind speed by means of the properties of wind-borne sound waves. It operates on the principle that the propagation velocity of a sound wave in a moving medium is equal to the velocity of sound with respect to the medium plus t ...

A hygrometer based upon the diffusion of water vapor through a porous membrane.

Name sometimes used in place of pyranometer as a generic term.

The quantity to be measured (or modulated, or detected, or operated upon) which is received by an instrument. Thus, for a thermometer. temperature is the input quantity.

The value of the quantity measured, as indicated or otherwise provided by a measuring instrument.

Erasable Programmable Read Only Memory. Programable read-only memory which can be erased, usually by ultraviolet light, and re-programmed.

Rain gauge which registers precipitation that is too light to be registered by ordinary recording of the depth of water from precipitation. Same as ombrometer.

A term used to describe a sensor (or sensors), the associated transducer(s), and the data readout or recording device.

Abbreviation for radio frequency.

Instrument for measuring the mean intensity of glo global solar radiation (direct and diffuse) near the earth's surface in a specified time interval.

A mercury barometer of the fixed cistern type in which a moveable scale terminating in an ivory point is used to compensate for the variations in the height of the mercury in the cistern

An evaporation pan in which the evaporation is measured from water in a pan floating in a larger body of water.

The process by which water in plants is transferred as water vapor to the atmosphere. Also, the amount of water so transferred.

A set of weekly colored rainbow arcs sometimes discernable inside a primary rainbow.

Particle on which the freezing of water occurs.

A clay atmometer consisting of a hollow ceramic sphere through which evaporation occurs. Evaporation is measured by the loss of water from the reservoir which feeds the sphere.

Any horizontal wind velocity tangent to the contour line of a constant pressure surface (or to the isobar of a geopotential surface) at the point in question.