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The basic cause of all weather
What is the sun?
Warm air is heavier or lighter than cool air?
What is lighter?
Scientists who study the weather
What are meteorologists?
The earth's surface spins at over how many hours per hour
What is 1000?
The imaginary line running through the earth from North Pole to South Pole
What is the axis?
Air is saturated when the humidity of the air what percent
What is 100%?
The lowest possible temperature at which air is able to hold all of its water vapor
What is the dew point?
The air that we live in receives most of its warmth from
What is the ground?
The amount of water vapor that the air can hold at a given temperature
What is the relative humidity?
Different seasons are caused by
What is the tilt of the earth's axis?
Water vapor that condenses to from liquid water on the ground
What is dew?
Winds on the earth are produced by
What are temperature differences?
The process in which water vapor leaves the air and changes into liquid water
What is condensation?
Puffy, bulgy clouds belong to this family
What is cumulus?
A term used to describe a cloud from which rain is falling
What is a nimbus cloud?
Water vapor that condenses and forms frozen water on the ground
What is frost?
Layers of flat clouds belong to this family
What is stratus?
An ice crystal in a cloud becomes too heavy, falls, melts, and lands on the earth as liquid
What is rain?
The type of storm that packs the most destructive power into the smallest space
What is a tornado?
Falling ice crystals melt slightly, stick, and freeze together into snowflakes
What is wet snow?
Wispy, curly clouds very high in the atmosphere belong to this family
What is cirrus?
Falling ie crystals melt into raindrops, then refreeze and land on earth as tiny pieces of ice
What is sleet?
Falling ice crystals melt, hit the earth as liquid rainm but refreeze as soon as they land
What is freezing rain?
A small piece of ice is tossed up and down inside a cloud, forming several layers of ice, until it is too heavy and falls to earth
What is hail?
Sheets of clouds that often produce rain
What are stratus clouds?
The calm region of very low air pressure in the center of a tornado
What is the eye?
Clouds made of very small ice crystals
What are cirrus clouds?
"Thunderhead" is another name for
What are cumulonimbus clouds?
The broad, flat top of a cumulonimbus cloud is called
What is an anvil top?
When opposite electrical charges build up in very tall clouds, this is produces
What is lightning?
The rapid expansion of superheated air causes shock waves that we hear as
What is thunder?