Heavy Weather Avoidance and Route Design: Concepts and Applications of 500 Mb Charts: A Textbook for Professional Mariners
By Captain Ma-Li Chen and Lee S. Chesneau
Paradise Cay Publications, 2008
245 pages
In Heavy Weather Avoidance, Chen and Chesneau collaborate as mariner and meteorologist to demystify 500 Mb charts and employ them as a useful tool for route planning heavy weather avoidance.
The book endeavors to define the atmosphere in three dimensions and from that model provide mariners with the knowledge they need to predict the intensity and movement of weather systems.
Well written and filled with explanatory charts, this book is not for the casual weather observer. But, given careful study and a bit of homework can develop an entirely new way of looking at 500 Mb charts. Following the discussion, the book provides examples of route planning and a comprehensive glossary of terms and abbreviations.
The serious ocean sailor who is willing to put the effort into studying and applying Chen and Chesneau’s concepts will give themselves a new level of expertise at dealing with weather.