Surface weather analysis United States, temperature and dewpoint are plotted in degrees Celsius. The wind barb points in the direction from which the wind is coming. Each full flag on the wind barb represents of wind, each half flag represents . When winds reach , a filled in triangle is used for each of wind. In the United States, rainfall plotted in the corner of the station model are in inches. The international standard rainfall measurement unit is the millimeter. Once a map has a field of station models plotted, the analyzing isobars (lines of equal pressure), isallobars (lines of equal pressure change),
Atmospheric pressure at which the vapor pressure is equal to the atmospheric pressure around the water. Because of this, the boiling point of water is lower at lower pressure and higher at higher pressure. Cooking at high elevations, therefore, requires adjustments to recipes or pressure cooking. A rough approximation of elevation can be obtained by measuring the temperature at which water boils; in the mid-19th century, this method was used by explorers. An important application of the knowledge that atmospheric pressure varies directly with altitude was in determining the height of hills and mountains thanks to the availability of reliable pressure measurement