| Foreword | p. viii |
| Meet the author | p. x |
| Only got a minute? | p. xii |
| Only got five minutes? | p. xiv |
| Introduction | p. 1 |
| A survey of the atmosphere | p. 4 |
| The Sun | p. 4 |
| Composition of the atmosphere | p. 8 |
| The vertical structure of the atmosphere | p. 14 |
| The global circulation | p. 20 |
| The Hadley circulation | p. 21 |
| The effect of the Earth's rotation | p. 24 |
| The picture so far | p. 26 |
| Mid-latitude waves and the jet stream | p. 27 |
| Heat transport by the oceans | p. 32 |
| The real global circulation | p. 33 |
| Monsoons | p. 35 |
| El Niño and the Southern Oscillation | p. 36 |
| The global climate | p. 43 |
| From climate to weather | p. 51 |
| Weather systems | p. 54 |
| Mid-latitude weather systems | p. 55 |
| Atmospheric pressure, vertical motion and the weather | p. 56 |
| High pressure: anticyclones | p. 60 |
| Low pressure: mid-latitude depressions | p. 64 |
| Frontal systems | p. 68 |
| Tropical weather systems | p. 77 |
| Wind convergence | p. 79 |
| African easterly waves | p. 80 |
| Tropical cyclones | p. 80 |
| The Madden-Julian Oscillation | p. 84 |
| Local weather effects | p. 88 |
| Topographic effects | p. 89 |
| Surface effects | p. 98 |
| Coastal effects | p. 103 |
| Fog | p. 109 |
| Using local knowledge | p. 111 |
| Wild weather | p. 114 |
| Intense mid-latitude depressions | p. 115 |
| Hurricanes | p. 119 |
| Thunderstorms and hail | p. 124 |
| Floods | p. 129 |
| Tornadoes | p. 131 |
| Snow and ice | p. 135 |
| Drought | p. 140 |
| Observing the weather | p. 146 |
| Weather observations through history | p. 146 |
| Two key seventeenth-century developments | p. 147 |
| The development of weather observing networks | p. 155 |
| Observing the weather today | p. 156 |
| Making your own observations | p. 163 |
| Operational weather forecasting | p. 169 |
| A brief history | p. 171 |
| Computer models | p. 182 |
| The process of forecasting | p. 192 |
| Using an NWP forecast | p. 198 |
| Ensemble forecasting | p. 203 |
| Post-processing | p. 205 |
| Beyond the NWP forecast | p. 207 |
| Between the forecasts | p. 209 |
| Making your own forecasts | p. 215 |
| Interpreting media forecasts | p. 216 |
| Forecasting with no aids | p. 217 |
| Aids to forecasting | p. 225 |
| A forecast process | p. 226 |
| Using forecast information from the internet | p. 238 |
| Climate change | p. 244 |
| The greenhouse effect | p. 245 |
| The recent temperature record | p. 246 |
| Other evidence for climate change | p. 249 |
| What does the future hold? | p. 252 |
| What can be done? | p. 255 |
| Taking it further | p. 262 |
| Appendix | p. 267 |
| Glossary | p. 270 |
| Index | p. 283 |
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