Portal:Weather

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...)

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The Evansville Tornado of November 2005 was a powerful tornado that formed early in the morning of November 6, 2005, outside of Evansville, a city in Southwestern Indiana on the Ohio River. It was the first of several significant tornado events in the month of November 2005. The tornado resulted in 25 confirmed fatalities across the region, making it by far the deadliest and most destructive tornado in the United States in 2005, and it was also the deadliest single tornado in the US since 36 died in Oklahoma on May 3, 1999. Significant tornadoes were also reported in western Kentucky on the same day, but none were as damaging or deadly as the Evansville storm.

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... that Come In was recorded on a hands-free microphone attached to a pair of headphones?
... that a Michigan TV station rescued and restored a weather ball that had been sitting for years in a scrapyard?
... that the apricot dress of Jacqueline Kennedy kept its shape in India's hot weather?
... that environment minister Peng Chi-ming drafted Taiwan's first weather insurance policy?
... 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 Quad Cities forecast office of the National Weather Service has been directly struck by both an F1 tornado and a historic derecho?

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View of the eyewall of Hurricane Katrina taken on August 28, 2005, as seen from a NOAA WP-3D Orion hurricane hunter aircraft before the storm made landfall on the United States Gulf Coast.

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...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 25

2009: Cyclone Aila struck Bangladesh, killing more than 300 people.

May 26

1972: Subtropical Storm Alpha reached peak intensity east of Savannah, Georgia, where it would make landfall the next day.

May 27

1774: Francis Beaufort, inventor of the Beaufort scale for measuring wind force, was born in Ireland.

May 28

2012: Tropical Storm Beryl made landfall near Jacksonville Beach, Florida, with maximum sustained winds of 55 knots (65 mph; 100 km/h). Beryl was the strongest off-season Atlantic tropical cyclone on record to strike the United States.

May 29

1995: A destructive tornado struck western Massachusetts, killing three people in the town of Great Barrington.

May 30

1959: Tropical Storm Arlene made landfall near Lafayette, Louisiana, bringing more than 10 inches (25 cm) of rain to parts of the northern Gulf Coast of the United States.

May 31

1889: The Johnstown Flood, caused by days of heavy rains which led to the failure of the South Fork Dam, killed more than 2,000 people in Johnstown, Pennsylvania.

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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. In 1908, during a 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...)

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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!