Weather Facts for Kids
Wild facts about weather
A waterspout is essentially a tornado that forms over water, sucking a column of water vapour up from the sea or lake surface. Ancient sailors who witnessed waterspouts sometimes mistook them for sea serpents or other monsters.
The jet stream is a ribbon of very fast-moving air about 9–16 kilometres above Earth's surface, reaching speeds of over 400 kilometres per hour. Pilots flying east across the Atlantic use the jet stream to arrive hours earlier than flying against it.
A haboob is a massive wall of dust and sand that can tower up to 3 kilometres high and travel at speeds of up to 100 kilometres per hour. These sudden storms are common in deserts across Africa, the Middle East, and the south-western USA.
Japan receives some of the heaviest snowfall of any country in the world, particularly on the western coast facing the Sea of Japan. Some towns in Niigata prefecture regularly receive several metres of snow each winter.
Frost forms when water vapour in the air freezes directly onto cold surfaces without first becoming liquid, a process called deposition. The intricate, feathery patterns of frost crystals grow as more water vapour attaches to the initial ice crystals.
Barometric pressure — the weight of air pressing down on Earth's surface — is one of the most important tools for predicting weather. When pressure falls, stormy weather is likely; when it rises, fair weather usually follows.
Wind direction is always named after where the wind is blowing from, not where it is heading. So a northerly wind blows from the north towards the south, while a southerly wind blows from the south towards the north.
Hurricanes, typhoons, and cyclones are all the same type of storm — a large tropical rotating storm — but named differently depending on where they occur. They are called hurricanes in the Atlantic, typhoons in the Pacific, and cyclones in the Indian Ocean.
The summer 2003 European heat wave was the hottest in at least 500 years, causing temperatures above 40°C in parts of France and the UK. Scientists estimate it resulted in over 70,000 deaths across Europe.
The 'haar' is a type of cold sea fog that rolls in off the North Sea onto the coasts of eastern Scotland and England, especially in spring and early summer. It can quickly turn a sunny inland day into a chilly, grey, foggy one on the coast.