Synoptic meteorology is the diagnosis, study, and forecasting of weather using observations of simultaneous weather conditions over a wide area. In this new, comprehensive textbook for graduate and postgraduate meteorology students, the author presents for the first time information that is now considered essential in modern weather forecasting. Drawing on teaching materials from his work at the University of Oklahoma, Bluestein examines the elementary phenomena of synoptic meteorology, from scalar fields to atmospheric kinematics, dynamics, and thermodynamics. A later volume covers the behaviour of extratropical weather systems, fronts and jets, and precipitation systems in midlatitudes.