Weather Facts for Kids
Wild facts about weather
Meteorologist Edward Lorenz coined the term 'butterfly effect' to illustrate how tiny changes in initial atmospheric conditions can lead to vastly different weather outcomes, making long-range forecasting inherently uncertain.
When you see a double rainbow, the colours in the second, outer rainbow are reversed — red is on the inside and violet is on the outside.
Mesoscale convective systems are organised groups of thunderstorms that can span hundreds of kilometres and last for many hours, producing widespread heavy rain and severe weather.
In very cold, calm conditions, delicate ice crystals called frost flowers can grow on the surface of thin sea ice. They look like tiny frozen roses.
A bolt of lightning is about five times hotter than the surface of the Sun, reaching temperatures of around 30,000 Kelvin. Despite this incredible heat, the flash lasts less than a millisecond.
Raindrops are not teardrop-shaped as often drawn — small raindrops are nearly spherical, while larger ones look more like a flattened burger bun. The classic pointed teardrop shape only appears when water drips from a surface.
Every snowflake has six sides because of the way water molecules bond together when they freeze into ice crystals. Although they all share this hexagonal structure, no two snowflakes are believed to be exactly alike.
Thunder is caused by lightning superheating the surrounding air so rapidly that it expands explosively, creating a shockwave we hear as a rumble or crack. You can estimate how far away a storm is by counting the seconds between lightning and thunder — every three seconds equals about one kilometre.
A single cumulus cloud can weigh more than 500 million kilograms — roughly the same as 80 elephants. Clouds float because the tiny water droplets inside them are spread out over a huge volume, making the overall density less than the surrounding air.
The largest hailstone ever recorded in the USA fell in South Dakota in 2010 and measured 20 centimetres across — about the size of a cricket ball. Hailstones form when updrafts in thunderstorms carry raindrops high into freezing air repeatedly.