Portal:Weather

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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...)

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The Christmas 1994 nor'easter was an intense cyclone along the East Coast of the United States and Atlantic Canada. It developed from an area of low pressure in the southeast Gulf of Mexico near the Florida Keys, and moved across the state of Florida. As it entered the warm waters of the Gulf Stream in the Atlantic Ocean, it began to rapidly intensify, exhibiting traits of a tropical system, including the formation of an eye. It attained a pressure of 970 millibars on December 23 and 24, and after moving northward, it came ashore near New York City on Christmas Eve. Due to the uncertain nature of the storm, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) did not classify it as a tropical cyclone.

Heavy rain from the developing storm contributed to significant flooding in South Carolina. Much of the rest of the East Coast was affected by high winds, coastal flooding, and beach erosion. New York State and New England bore the brunt of the storm; damage was extensive on Long Island, and in Connecticut, 130,000 households lost electric power during the storm. Widespread damage and power outages also occurred throughout Rhode Island and Massachusetts, where the storm generated 30-foot (9.1 m) waves along the coast. Due to the warm weather pattern that contributed to the storm's development, precipitation was limited to rain. Two people were killed, and damage amounted to at least $21 million dollars.

Recently selected articles: Evansville Tornado of November 2005,Typhoon Tip, Hurricane Floyd, More...

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

... 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 extreme event attribution estimates how much climate change causes weather events, such as the 2021 Western North America heat wave?
... that weather whiplash is the phenomenon of rapid swings between extremes of weather conditions?
... 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 the weather forecast for HD 189733 b is "Westerly winds at 2000 m/s, with molten glass showers"?

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Cyclone Catarina, the only major tropical cyclone ever observed in the Southern Atlantic Ocean, as it appeared from the International Space Station on March 26, 2004.

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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?

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Recent and ongoing weather

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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

1896: The first tornado of a deadly sequence of tornado outbreaks killed 73 people in North-Central Texas.

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

2018: Cyclone Sagar struck northwestern Somalia, killing 56 people in three countries. It was the strongest tropical cyclone on record to strike Somalia.

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Clement Lindley Wragge (18 September 1852 – 10 December 1922) was a meteorologist born in Stourbridge, Worcestershire, England, but moved to Oakamoor, Staffordshire as a child. He set up the Wragge Museum in Stafford following a trip around the world. He was a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and in 1879 was elected Fellow of the Royal Meteorological Society in London. To the end of his life, he was interested in Theosophy and spiritualism. During his tour of India he met with Mirza Ghulam Ahmad of Qadian, the founder of the Ahmadiyya movement in Islam who had claimed to be the Mahdi, the messianic redeemer awaited by Muslims. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle sought him out in New Zealand to ask for his views on spiritualism before writing The Wanderings of a Spiritualist in 1921. After training in law, Wragge became a meteorologist, his accomplishments in the field including winning the Scottish Meteorological Society's Gold Medal and years later starting the trend of using people's names for cyclones. He travelled widely, giving lectures in London and India, and in his later years was an authority on Australia, India and the Pacific Islands. (Full article...)

Previously selected biographies: Robert Case, Wladimir Köppen, More...

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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!