When we wake up in the morning one of the first things we are interested in is the weather.
Weather is the condition of the lower atmosphere* at any particular time. If there were no atmosphere there would be no weather. The moon has no atmosphere and no weather.
The elements of the weather
To describe the weather we must describe the state of the air.
We can do this under 5 main headings. These are called the elements
of the weather:
1. air temperature - How hot or cold is it?
2. precipitation (rain, snow, hail, sleet, frost, fog, dew) - Is it wet or dry?
3. cloud cover and sunshine - Is it sunny or cloudy?
4. wind speed and direction -The movement of the air.
5. air pressure
The climate of a place is its average weather. To calculate this we must know what types of weather occur there at different times of the year.
Weather Words
* The atmosphere is the layer of gases, called air, which surrounds the planet earth.
* The air in the atmosphere is a mixture of gases. These are mainly nitrogen (about 4/5) and oxygen (about 1/5). There are also amounts of water vapour, carbon dioxide and some rare gases. The amount of water vapour is very important as this gives us our cloud and rain.
