Portal:Weather
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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Lightning striking the Eiffel Tower on the night of June 3, 1902. This is one of the earliest photographs of lightning in an urban setting.
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...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?
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- Wikinews weather portal
- March 26, 2021: Tropical moisture ceases to cause severe floods in South East Australia
- February 19, 2021: Winter storms hammer Texas, fatalities reported
- December 28, 2021: Typhoon Phanfone strikes Philippines
- February 1, 2022: Deadly floods in Brazil after heavy rainfall
- April 15, 2022: South African floods kill at least 300 people
- Weather of 2024
- 2024 Atlantic hurricane season
- 2020–21 North American winter
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- Tornadoes of 2024
July 11
1991: L'Express Airlines Flight 508 crashed in a severe thunderstorm in Birmingham, Alabama, killing 13 of 15 people onboard.
July 12
2006: An F2 tornado struck parts of New York and Connecticut, causing several million dollars in damage.
July 13
2006: Tropical Storm Bilis made landfall on Taiwan. Bilis eventually caused 672 deaths and more than $4 billion in damage in the Philippines, Taiwan, and China, mostly due to flooding.
July 14
1960: Hurricane Abby passed just north of the Honduras coast, causing only minor damage.
July 15
1987: Typhoon Thelma made landfall in southern South Korea. At least 123 people were killed, and major damage occurred to the country's fishing fleet: more than 3,000 ships were damaged or destroyed.
July 16
1904: A destructive tornado struck Chappaqua, New York, killing two people.
July 17
2013: Tropical Storm Cimaron formed near Calayan, Cagayan, Philippines. A lightning strike from the storm in Ilocos Sur killed two people.
Sir George Gabriel Stokes, 1st Baronet, FRS (/stoʊks/; 13 August 1819 – 1 February 1903) was an Irish physicist and mathematician. Born in County Sligo, Ireland, Stokes spent all of his career at the University of Cambridge, where he was the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics from 1849 until his death in 1903. As a physicist, Stokes made seminal contributions to fluid mechanics, including the Navier–Stokes equations; and to physical optics, with notable works on polarization and fluorescence. As a mathematician, he popularised "Stokes' theorem" in vector calculus and contributed to the theory of asymptotic expansions. Stokes, along with Felix Hoppe-Seyler, first demonstrated the oxygen transport function of haemoglobin, and showed colour changes produced by the aeration of haemoglobin solutions.
Stokes was made a baronet by the British monarch in 1889. In 1893 he received the Royal Society's Copley Medal, then the most prestigious scientific prize in the world, "for his researches and discoveries in physical science". He represented Cambridge University in the British House of Commons from 1887 to 1892, sitting as a Conservative. Stokes also served as president of the Royal Society from 1885 to 1890 and was briefly the Master of Pembroke College, Cambridge. Stokes's extensive correspondence and his work as Secretary of the Royal Society has led him to be referred to as a gatekeeper of Victorian science, with his contributions surpassing his own published papers. (Full article...)
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Other candidates:
- Featured Article Review: 2005 Atlantic hurricane season (Discussion)
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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!
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