Year 11 are revising the conditions a tropical storm needs and the structure of a mature storm. The teacher opens earth.nullschool on the board and, rather than relying on whatever is happening that day, uses its date calendar to go back to 2 September 2019, when Hurricane Dorian stalled over Grand Bahama. With the surface wind animation running, students watch air spiral anticlockwise into a tight core around a centre of light winds; the teacher then switches to ocean mode with the sea surface temperature overlay for the same date, so the class sees that the storm is sitting over water well above 27 °C. The teacher steps the date forward a day at a time as Dorian tracks north past the Carolinas towards Nova Scotia, showing the winds and then the sea temperatures at each date, and the class watches the core loosen and spread as the water beneath it cools. Students sketch the storm's structure from the screen at three dates, label the eye, eyewall and spiral inflow, and write a paragraph linking each change in the storm to the water beneath it.
Tools: earth.nullschool.net Nine ideas for your own version in Generate
This page is one of a growing set of PICRAT examples by cell, subject and grade. Page maintained by Andy Perryer.