| What is weather? |
| People often get confused between the definitions of weather and climate. Given this, well what is the definitions of these two words? Now that I brought it up I guess I have to tell you. Well climate is basically the average weather conditions experienced over a region throughout the year and series of years. Weather is what happens daily. There are all different types of weather. There is rain, snow, sleet, freezing rain, hail, grauple, thunderstorms, thundershowers, tornadoes, hurricanes, gales, wind, the list keeps going on and on. I will describe some of these events and hope they increase your knowledge in the field of meteorology. |
| RAIN: What is rain? How is rain formed? These are questions that I'm sure each and single one of you think about everytime you see it. Well you have the questions and I have the answers. First I will go through the water cycle. In the water cycle there are 4 stages; evaporation, transportation, condensation, and voila: precipitation. Evaporation is when liquid (or in this case wata) is heated from our sun and turns into a gas known as water vapor. Transporation is basically the same thing but the water is coming from the plants and trees. As this water vapor continues to rise into the troposphere (layer of air closest to the ground) it begins to cool. Why? Well as we know as you increase with height the temperature drops. Once a certain temperature is met, the water vapor will condense and turn into water droplets. The temperature at which this occurs is called the dew point, or the temperature at which water vapor condenses. As they condense and turn into water dropletts we see this process as clouds. If the clouds grow tall enough or the water droplets become too heavy then they will fall to the earth as precipitation...in this case we have rain baby! Well now you should know what rain is and how its formed right? Good, thought so. |
| Snow: Well here we go to snow. Everyone's favorite word. You know whats always bugged me? Everyone (students) always want snow during the winter. Well the reason is so school can get cancelled. Is that a good reason though? I don't think so. I mean come on. When school gets cancelled you have to make it up in the summer. I don't know about you but I don't want to be spending my time during the summer in school, oh hell no. I want to be outside enjoying the 90 degree heat along with 70 degree dew points. Damn I miss summer. Well I guess I should get to the snow part. As you know, or should know water freezes at 32 degrees F (0 degrees C). If the temperature from the cloud all the way to the surface is below 32 degrees the precipitation will freeze and will fall as snow. |
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