Weather Notes

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1. Radiation: The sun heats up the surface of large bodies of water (oceans, lakes, rivers).

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2.Evaporation: Water turns to water vapor (from a liquid to a gas) and rises into the air.

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2. Transpiration: Plants lose water out of their leaves (sweating). The water drops then evaporate and rise into the air.

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3.Condensation: Water vapor cools and turns back into liquid droplets or ice crystals, forming clouds.

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4. Precipitation: The clouds “get heavy” and release the water droplets back to the Earth in the forms of rain, snow, sleet or hail.

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5. Collection and Surface Run Off: Most ends up in bodies of water. Some precipitation is used by plants and animals. The rest runs off the surface of the Earth and ends up back in oceans, lakes and rivers.

Weather Factors

Water (hydrologic) Cycle-water moving between the Earth’s surface and the atmosphere-evaporation (transpiration), condensation, precipitation & surface run-off

humidity – measure of the amount of water vapor in the air

Weather Factors

Cloud formation-water vapor (gas) in the air condenses to form water droplets (liquid) or ice crystals (solid)

dew point – temperature at which condensation begins

dew – condensation that forms on vegetation

After your quiz, read pages 560-566 in

your textbook.

Clouds -Draw and describe the following

types of clouds. Then provide at least 3 pieces of information about each. (You may bullet your responses).

-cirrus -cirrocumulus -cumulus

-cumulonimbus -stratus -nimbostratus

Cloudscirrus

- “cirrus” means “curly hair”-wispy, feathery clouds-very high altitudes, above 6 km (most from 10-13 km)-white-temp very low, made of ice crystals

cirrus

cirrus

cirrus

Cloudscirrus

- “cirrus” means “curly hair”-wispy, feathery clouds-high altitudes, above 6 km (most from 10-13 km)-white -temp very low, made of ice crystals-no precipitation reaches the ground

cirrocumulus -look like rows of cotton balls or scales of a fish-usually indicate a storm is coming-lower than normal cirrus clouds (7-10 km)-no precipitation reaches the ground

cirrocumulus

cirrocumulus

cirrocumulus

Cloudsstratus

- “strato” means “spread out”-form in flat layers-c0ver most of the sky -dull grey color-below 2.5 km

stratus

stratus

stratus

Cloudsnimbostratus

-when stratus clouds “thicken” with moisture-they produce continuous rain or snow-dark gray-below 2.5 km

fog – stratus clouds forming at or near the Earth’s surface

nimbostratus

nimbostratus

nimbostratus

Clouds

cumulus- “cumulus” means “heap” or “mass”-look fluffy or like round piles of cotton-usually indicate fair weather -white -each cloud is different-below 2.5 km

cumulus

cumulus

cumulus

Clouds

cumulonimbus -when cumulus grow in height up

to 18 k-produce thunderstorms with

heavy downpours and hail-made of liquid drops throughout,

ice crystals at the top-common in tropical regions, rare

at the poles

cumulonimbus

cumulonimbus

cumulonimbus

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Clouds

contrails- long thin trails of ice crystals forming behind airplanes-planes release moisture from engines-air is so cold, that it quickly freezes

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Hail

Hail animation

Hail video

Hail

-round pellets of ice that are larger than 5 mm- only form in cumulonimbus clouds during thunderstorms-starts as an ice pellet inside a cold region of a cloud-strong updrafts carry the pellet up through the cold region many times-each time, a new layer of ice forms-eventually the hail becomes heavy and falls to the ground