weather

face and withstand with courage; "She braved the elements"

cause to slope

sail to the windward of
change under the action or influence of the weather; "A weathered old hut"
the atmospheric conditions that comprise the state of the atmosphere in terms of temperature and wind and clouds and precipitation; "they were hoping for good weather"; "every day we have weather conditions and yesterday was no exception"; "the conditions were too rainy for playing in the snow"
upwind: towards the side exposed to wind

Visibility Cloud Pressure Humidity
The weather is all around us, all the time. It is an important part of our lives and one that we cannot control. Instead the weather often controls how and where we live, what we do, what we wear and what we eat. Someone who studies the weather is called a meteorologist. Weather predictions are made by forecasters who you see on television.


Weather is made up of different things. Click on the different types of weather above to find out more about them and how they can be measured.


Weather Definition
Weather is the day-to-day conditions of a particular place.
For example: It was raining today at school. Yesterday it was sunny at home.
What is Climate?
Climate is often spoken about at the same time as weather, but it is something quite different. The climate is the common, average weather conditions at a particular place over a long period of time (for example, more than 30 years). We learn about different climates around the world. Deserts have a hot and dry climate while the Antarctic has a very cold and dry climate.

"Cold Weather" redirects here. For the 2010 film, see Cold Weather (film).
For the geological process, see Weathering and Erosion.
This article is about the atmospheric term. For other uses, see Weather (disambiguation).


Thunderstorm near Garajau, Madeira


Weather is the state of the atmosphere, to the degree that it is hot and it's cold it's yes then it's no, it's in then it's out it's up then it's down, wet or dry, calm or stormy, clear or cloudy.[1] Most weather phenomena occur in the troposphere,[2][3] just below the stratosphere. Weather refers, generally, to day-to-day temperature and precipitation activity, whereas climate is the term for the average atmospheric conditions over longer periods of time.[4] When used without qualification, "weather" is understood to be the weather of Earth.





Weather occurs due to density (temperature and moisture) differences between one place and another. These differences can occur due to the sun angle at any particular spot, which varies by latitude from the tropics.The strong temperature contrast between polar and tropical air gives rise to the jet stream. Weather systems in the mid-latitudes, such as extratropical cyclones, are caused by instabilities of the jet stream flow. Because the Earth's axis is tilted relative to its orbital plane, sunlight is incident at different angles at different times of the year. On Earth's surface, temperatures usually range ±40 °C (100 °F to −40 °F) annually. Over thousands of years, changes in Earth's orbit affect the amount and distribution of solar energy received by the Earth and influence long-term climate and global climate change.

Surface temperature differences in turn cause pressure differences. Higher altitudes are cooler than lower altitudes due to differences in compressional heating. Weather forecasting is the application of science and technology to predict the state of the atmosphere for a future time and a given location. The atmosphere is a chaotic system,so small changes to one part of the system can grow to have large effects on the system as a whole. Human attempts to control the weather have occurred throughout human history, and there is evidence that human activity such as agriculture and industry has inadvertently modified weather patterns.


Studying how the weather works on other planets has been helpful in understanding how weather works on Earth. A famous landmark in the Solar System, Jupiter's Great Red Spot, is an anticyclonic storm known to have existed for at least 300 years. However, weather is not limited to planetary bodies. A star's corona is constantly being lost to space, creating what is essentially a very thin atmosphere throughout the Solar System. The movement of mass ejected from the Sun is known as the solar wind.