Weather Terms
What is weather?
The state of the atmosphere at a given time and place.
What are the four main steps of the water cycle?
evaporation, condensation, precipitation, and collection.
What is a tornado?
a fast‑spinning, funnel‑shaped column of air that reaches from a storm cloud down to the ground.
What is the name of our club?
Weather Wizards!
What is a scientist who studies weather called?
a meteorologist
Name 3 types of collections or landforms where water collects.
Lake, pond, ocean, puddle, valley, plain, volcano, etc.
What are the differences between hurricanes and tsunamis?
A hurricane is a tropical storm with rotating winds going at least 74 mph (as fast as a car on the highway!). A tsunami is a giant wave caused by an underwater earthquake that builds up as it gets closer to shore.
The Ann Arbor Hands-On Museum and Leslie Science and Nature Center!
What's the difference between weather and climate?
Weather is the state of the atmosphere during a short period of time, but climate is the usual weather that a place has over long periods of time.
For example, a desert has a dry climate but could have a rainy weather day.
Precipitation is when water falls from clouds. What are the four forms that precipitation can come in?
rain, snow, sleet, and hail
What causes the earth to quake?
The earth is made up of sections called tectonic plates. These plates shift and cause earthquakes.
What is Porsha's favorite color? Hint: she said it during our game last time...
Purple!
°F and °C mean degrees Fahrenheit and degrees Celsius. These are both names of scientists and represent units of measuring air temperature. Fahrenheit is only used in the US while Celsius is used basically everywhere else.
How are clouds formed?
When water evaporates into the air, the water vapor particles stick together and to dust particles in the air. Once there is enough of a change in pressure/temperature, the particles condense into a cloud. (DEMO!)
6 levels! EF 0 to EF 5. It's measured by wind speed and potential damage, so an EF 0 is 65-85 mph with light damage while an EF 5 is 200+ mph with massive damage.
What is Rachel's favorite animal? Hint: a large mammal that lives in Africa and is super duper cute.
Hippo!
What is a weather front? BONUS POINT: what are the two types of weather fronts? SUPER BONUS POINT: What happens when these two fronts meet?
The boundary line where two large air masses with different temperatures and humidities meet. There are warm fronts and cold fronts. When they meet, the cold front forces the warm front upwards because cold air is heavy and warm air is light. This can create a huge storm and even tornados to form.
What is another step that can be part of the water cycle that isn't one of the main four?
Transpiration is when water transfers from plants to the air. It's basically the process of evaporation from a plant rather than a collection.
What is considered to be the most deadly natural disaster to have happened in history?
The 1931 China floods had an estimated 1 million to 4 million casualties.
If we were a type of extreme weather, what would each of us be?
Rachel would be a tsunami and Porsha would be a tornado.