The Department of Meteorology at the University of Reading is offering premium online courses with support from internationally-renowned academic staff.
This training is suitable for professional meteorologists, consultants, STEM students, graduates and academics seeking to improve their range of skills and knowledge. The courses may be suitable CPD for chartered meteorologists.
This course is delivered by Prof Chris Holloway. It runs from January to March 2026.
This course explores weather systems and circulations in the tropical atmosphere, such as:
- convection
- the intertropical convergence zone
- the Hadley and Walker Circulations
- the El Nino-Southern Oscillation
- the Madden-Julian Oscillation
- tropical cyclones.
You will need to satisfactorily complete three of the five problem sheets to pass.
What to expect
- Each week, new lecture notes with videos.
- Weekly live online interactive sessions.
- Exercises and assessments.
- The opportunity to ask for help at live online sessions and on class discussion boards.
- To study between four and eight hours per week.
- Feedback on your work.
- A certificate when you successfully complete the course.
Prerequisites
- A working knowledge of A-level Mathematics or equivalent, including:
- Integration and differentiation
- Trigonometry
- Vectors
- Exponentials and logarithms
- Quantities and units in mechanics
- Kinematics
- Forces and Newton’s laws
- A pass equivalent to a 2.1 in an undergraduate module in meteorology or atmospheric science or the online course Fundamentals of Meteorology, or equivalent, including:
- Ideal gas law
- Hydrostatic balance
- Geostrophic balance in terms of pressure and geopotential height
