Drawing the Weather
The Unexpected Delights of Hand-Drawn Weather Maps
A few days ago, a rather dramatic storm system moved into Portland. It had been unusually hot—temps reaching 100 degrees, which is rare here—so I dashed out to the nearest swim dock to jump in the river.
Which was great! Until it wasn’t! The sky grew ominously dark, the wind picked up and formed whitecaps on the water, and a sandstorm blew people off the little riverside beach. Then I saw lightning in the distance.
We’d been warned/reassured that a low pressure system was moving in, bringing cooler temps but also maybe some thunder and lightning when it met up with the hot air currently sitting over Portland.
Here it comes, I thought. Weather system.
Imagine my excitement when I read this story in the New York Times about meteorologists who still use hand-drawn weather maps. At the National Weather Service’s Storm Prediction Centers, they still break out the markers and colored pencils, because “analyzing a weather map by hand allows you to feel the weather in your veins…You just get it into your head in a different manner.”
Of course, I had to find out everything about hand-drawn weather maps.
Which led me to the website of Bob Copeland, a meteorologist-turned-painter who started a fine art career in retirement but also sold the hand-drawn weather maps that he used on his TV weather forecasts in the seventies. He would even draw you a custom map of any specific date of your choosing. (I’m not sure Bob is still doing this, I reached out in hopes of getting an interview but didn’t hear back.) Imagine all the TV meteorologists, and the stacks and stacks of hand-drawn weather maps they must’ve created back in the day! I hate to think of them getting tossed out, but I suppose that’s what happened. They probably seemed so ordinary at the time. Now they seem kind of magical.
Speaking of magical, all this talk of weather forecasting sent me on a detour to Steve Martin’s performance as a wacky weatherman with his magnetic weather board in LA Story, a movie that totally holds up if you’re looking for a lighthearted journey back to what seems now like a simpler time. Sarah Jessica Parker! Richard E. Grant, for crying out loud!
Anyway, back to weather maps: I was delighted to discover The Weather Academy, created by meteorologist Joseph Patton to teach the study of weather, for free, to absolutely everyone. AND—GASP—there’s a whole unit on how to make hand-drawn maps! There’s still time, folks, to realize your long-cherished ambition to become an expert weather forecaster! Be a self-appointed expert in high pressure fronts and thunderstorms!
By now you will probably not be at all surprised to learn that YouTube is absolutely overflowing with instructional videos for amateur meteorologists, including this helpful explanation of isobars from Storm Chaser Coaching:
and this charming video made by a professional meteorologist to explain weather map symbols to his cousin’s kid’s science class:
And any discussion of hand-drawn weather maps has to come eventually to Andy Warhol, whose silkscreen weather maps asked us to consider whether the mundane maps in our daily newspapers could be considered fine art.
As you can probably guess by now, I had to try my hand at drawing a weather map. With all my newly-acquired meteorological training, I found the Storm Prediction Archive and got a map of Wednesday’s weather system. Weather Briefing has some hints about how to decode and draw these maps. My first effort isn’t going to get me a job in meteorology, but it was immensely satisfying nonetheless. Give it a try.
Supporters are also drawing weather
The next day, I went out and painted the cool, heavy clouds that have moved in. I’m sending some ideas about drawing clouds and skies to supporters on Monday.
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I love this. It reminds me of artist Billy Renkl who has a journal where he paints the color of the sky on a daily basis. I feel like this would be a great way to connect with drawing the weather patterns. Thank you for sharing 💙💚💙💚💙
A) I love the way you captured the movement and reflections in the water in the first painting. B) This is so fun! I took a meteorology class back when I worked in air quality as a kind of professional development (and an effort to make my boring job slightly more interesting). It was fascinating--especially the physics of it all, which I knew nothing about (also, it was a literal correspondence course, like through the mail, even though this was the mid 2000s or maybe early 2010s and email was ubiquitous). I'm sorely tempted to take these classes now!