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Mountain weather comprehensive textbook

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 ColdAndWet 12 Apr 2021

Has anyone got any recommendations for a comprehensive textbook on mountain weather please? Ideally relevant to UK weather systems but I don’t mind if it’s worldwide as long as it is comprehensive in its approach to uk weather.
 

Tempted by “Mountain weather and climate “ by Barry 3rd Ed  but not sure if it’s academic approach will be less helpful for application in uk hills .

cheers

Neil

 Siward 13 Apr 2021
In reply to ColdAndWet:

Maybe not the sort of weighty tome you want but I never tire of recommending the chapter in Scotland's Winter Mountains by the late Martin Moran as a truly excellent grounding in mountain weather. The rest of the book is excellent too. 

 Mehmet Karatay 19 Apr 2021
In reply to ColdAndWet:

Mountain Weather and Climate Roger Barry
By chance, I received Mountain Weather and Climate last week. I've not had a chance to read it yet, but I've flicked through it a few times and dipped into the odd paragraph. The first thing to note is that it does not discuss the UK at all as far as I can tell. All the case studies seem to be about larger mountains but many of the concepts still apply to the UK; you may have to apply the principles you learn yourself though.

The book is definitely academic in its approach but, at first glance, seems to focus more on concepts than mathematics. There are still equations etc. in the book but they do not dominate. The diagrams in the book seem good at explaining the dynamics of how mountains affect airflow. The book assumes that you have an understanding of weather already. It doesn't explain the basics of what weather is, where it comes from, etc.

This book is comprehensive but it assumes prior knowledge and, as you say, is academic. It does not mention the UK once as far as I can tell. It might combine well with Understand the Weather, which I mention below.

Weather for Hillwalkers Malcolm Thomas
I got this at the same time as Mountain Weather and Climate. It is a very accessible book written by a professional weather forecaster. It starts from the basics and covers all the key concepts you need to understand but doesn't go into much depth and then explains how mountains interplay with these concepts. It won't take you long to get through but will give you a good grounding for other texts. It is written for a UK audience. For something like the ML schemes, this will give you most of what you need to know.

It might not be in-depth but it is comprehensive in the topics it covers, if that makes sense. UK specific.

Scotland's Winter Mountains Martin Moran
As Siward says, Martin Moran's chapter on mountain weather is very good and well written. I've seen it recommended in the back of other meteorology books as a good source for further information about mountain weather. The rest of the book, while not about weather, is excellent and you can see why it is a classic.

Mountain Weather David Pedgley
This book is specifically about the UK. The first half gives examples of weather systems that affect the UK with chapters such as "Windy Day", "Dull Day", "Cloudless Day", etc. The second half is about how weather differs between the mountain tops and valleys for the systems already described in the first half: "Windy Top", "Windy Valley" etc. It is a good reference, but I've struggled to learn from it until I had a background from elsewhere. I can't quite figure out whether to call it comprehensive or not. 

Understand the Weather Peter Inness
This book is not about mountains specifically but gives a very good grounding to weather in general. The book is written by an ex-Met Office forecaster and now a lecturer at the University of Reading, one of the top places for studying meteorology in the UK. There are examples from all around the world, with plenty of examples from the UK when appropriate.

General Thoughts
The more I learn about the weather, the more I realise that the key thing to understand is the dynamics of the atmosphere: whether air is rising or descending and how that's affecting the relative humidity. As you read your chosen book, I would recommend keeping the dynamics in the back of your mind and keep asking yourself how what you've read impacts it. I'm going through this process myself at the moment as I train to write forecasts for the Mountain Weather Information Service.

Hope this helps,
Mehmet


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