Portal:Weather

Portal topics: Activities; Culture; Geography; Health; History; Mathematics; Nature; People; Philosophy; Religion; Society; Technology; Random portal

The weather portal

Weather is the state of the atmosphere, describing for example the degree to which it is hot or cold, wet or dry, calm or stormy, clear or cloudy. On Earth, most weather phenomena occur in the lowest layer of the planet's atmosphere, the troposphere, just below the stratosphere. Weather refers to day-to-day temperature, precipitation, and other atmospheric conditions, whereas climate is the term for the averaging of atmospheric conditions over longer periods of time. When used without qualification, "weather" is generally understood to mean the weather of Earth.

Weather is driven by air pressure, temperature, and moisture differences between one place and another. These differences can occur due to the Sun's angle at any particular spot, which varies with latitude. The strong temperature contrast between polar and tropical air gives rise to the largest scale atmospheric circulations: the Hadley cell, the Ferrel cell, the polar cell, and the jet stream. Weather systems in the middle latitudes, such as extratropical cyclones, are caused by instabilities of the jet streamflow. Because Earth's axis is tilted relative to its orbital plane (called the ecliptic), sunlight is incident at different angles at different times of the year. On Earth's surface, temperatures usually range ±40 °C (−40 °F to 104 °F) annually. Over thousands of years, changes in Earth's orbit can affect the amount and distribution of solar energy received by Earth, thus influencing long-term climate and global climate change.

Surface temperature differences in turn cause pressure differences. Higher altitudes are cooler than lower altitudes, as most atmospheric heating is due to contact with the Earth's surface while radiative losses to space are mostly constant. Weather forecasting is the application of science and technology to predict the state of the atmosphere for a future time and a given location. Earth's weather system is a chaotic system; as a result, 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 history, and there is evidence that human activities such as agriculture and industry have 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, the 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. (Full article...)

Refresh with new selections below (purge)

edit

Selected article

Extratropical cyclones, sometimes called mid-latitude cyclones, are a group of cyclones that occur in the middle latitudes of the Earth, and which have neither tropical nor polar characteristics. They are connected with fronts and feature changes in temperature and dew point horizontally, otherwise known as "baroclinic zones". Extratropical cyclones are the everyday phenomena which, along with anticyclones, drive much of the weather on Earth, producing anything from cloudiness and mild showers to heavy gales and thunderstorms. The image on right is a picture taken by a weather satellite in infrared of the 1993 North American Storm Complex, an extremely strong extratropical cyclone known to many in North America as the "Storm of the Century".

Recently selected articles: Ice Storm of 1998, More...

More selected articles

Did you know (auto-generated) - show different entries

... that weather whiplash is the phenomenon of rapid swings between extremes of weather conditions?
... that Eric Berger wrote about weather for the Houston Chronicle even before he became a certified meteorologist?
... that an attempted British-Norwegian attack on the German battleship Tirpitz was abandoned after two Chariot manned torpedoes were lost due to bad weather?
... that Japanese actor Kouhei Higuchi prepared for his role on the television drama adaptation of My Personal Weatherman by learning from a weather forecaster?
... that after Irish post office clerk Maureen Flavin Sweeney reported worsening weather conditions, Dwight D. Eisenhower agreed to postpone D-Day by 24 hours?
... that in the 1980s, "Sherman Bonner, The Human Thermometer" presented the weather on an Arkansas TV station?

edit

Selected image

Flakes of snow highly magnified by a low-temperature scanning electron microscope (SEM). The colors are called "pseudo colors"; they are computer generated and are a standard technique used with SEM images.

Recently selected pictures: Sun dog,Pyrocumulus clouds, Cloud-to-cloud lightning, More...

More selected pictures

edit

More did you know...

...that the Flying river is the name given to the transport of water vapor from the Amazon rainforest to southern Brazil?

...that hurricane shutters are required for all homes in Florida unless impact-resistant glass is used?

...that the Joint Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Research is a combined weather and ocean research institute with the cooperation of the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research and the University of Hawaiʻi?

...that the SS Central America was sunk by a hurricane while carrying more than 30,000 pounds (13,600 kg) of gold, contributing to the Panic of 1857?

...that a hurricane force wind warning is issued by the United States National Weather Service for storms that are not tropical cyclones but are expected to produce hurricane-force winds (65 knots (75 mph; 120 km/h) or higher)?

...that the Automated Tropical Cyclone Forecasting System is a software package for tropical cyclone forecasting developed in 1988 that is still used today by meteorologists in various branches of the US Government?

Archive of previous DYK...

edit

Recent and ongoing weather

edit

This week in weather history...

May 13

1980: A strong tornado devastated downtown Kalamazoo, Michigan.

May 14

1991: The NOAA-12 weather satellite was launched into a polar orbit from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California.

May 15: Start of the East Pacific hurricane season and end of the Mauritius and Seychelles cyclone season

2014: Several locations in Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina set daily records for rainfall, including 107.9 millimetres (4.25 in) of rain in Belgrade, which contributed to major flooding that killed 86 people.

May 16

2004: Typhoon Nida reached category 5 intensity just east of the Philippines.

May 17

1896: A tornado outbreak killed dozens in Kansas and Nebraska.

May 18

1986: Cyclone Namu, the worst tropical cyclone ever to affect the Solomon Islands, killed 150 people as it passed through the island nation.

May 19

1780: An unusual darkness, lasting from noon until after sunset, fell over parts of New England.

See a new, random set • Other days in history...

edit

Selected biography

Edward Norton Lorenz (May 23, 1917 – April 16, 2008) was an American mathematician and meteorologist who established the theoretical basis of weather and climate predictability, as well as the basis for computer-aided atmospheric physics and meteorology. He is best known as the founder of modern chaos theory, a branch of mathematics focusing on the behavior of dynamical systems that are highly sensitive to initial conditions.

His discovery of deterministic chaos "profoundly influenced a wide range of basic sciences and brought about one of the most dramatic changes in mankind's view of nature since Sir Isaac Newton," according to the committee that awarded him the 1991 Kyoto Prize for basic sciences in the field of earth and planetary sciences. (Full article...)

Previously selected biographies: Vilhelm Friman Koren Bjerknes; Anders Celsius, More...

More selected biographies

Related portals

edit

Quality content

Featured articles

Featured lists

More weather-related Featured Lists...

Featured pictures

Hurricane Katrina flooding

Dust Bowl

Mist

Hurricane Katrina flooding

Rolling thunder cloud

Featured topics

Featured candidates update

Feat. article candidates:

Tropical Storm Ileana (2018) (Discussion)

Featured list candidates:

Feat. picture candidates:

Other candidates:

Featured Article Review: 2005 Atlantic hurricane season (Discussion)
Featured List Removal Candidate: List of storms in the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season (Discussion)

Good articles

More weather-related Good Articles...

edit

Subcategories

Category puzzle

Select [►] to view subcategories

edit

WikiProjects

The scope of WikiProject Weather is to have a single location for all weather-related articles on Wikipedia.

WikiProject Meteorology is a collaborative effort by dozens of Wikipedians to improve the quality of meteorology- and weather-related articles. If you would like to help, visit the project talk page, and see what needs doing.

WikiProject Severe weather is a similar project specific to articles about severe weather. Their talk page is located here.

WikiProject Tropical cyclones is a daughter project of WikiProject meteorology. The dozens of semi-active members and several full-time members focus on improving Wikipedia's coverage of tropical cyclones.

WikiProject Non-tropical storms is a collaborative project to improve articles related to winter storms, wind storms, and extratropical cyclones.

Wikipedia is a fully collaborative effort by volunteers. So if you see something you think you can improve, be bold and get to editing! We appreciate any help you can provide!