Building your 'weather' skills

Plotting a cyclone track

To assist you in charting the movement of tropical cyclone John we have included a cyclone plotting map and a tabulation of the position of John on successive days, from the 10th to the 15th of December 1999.

You will note, for example, that while it tracks fairly steadily to the SSW for the first few days, its direction of movement changes substantially between the 14th and 15th of December.

The Bureau of Meteorology often relies heavily on its coastal weather-radar network to detect sudden changes of this kind. Such information can be accessed in near real-time on the Bureau's web site.

Use the co-ordinates and chart to plot John's track.

If your web browser has the Flash 4 plug-in you can do this on screen, otherwise you will need to print out the image below, mark each location, then connect these points to draw the track.
Link to interactive Flash file (26K) to plot the track on screen.

Link to tracking exercises Tracking exercises for the completed plot.
Back to the first page of tropical cyclone John