The Earth’s atmosphere (excluding the exosphere) extends for several hundred kilometers above the surface of the Earth and consists of a...

Synoptic charts provide a summary of weather conditions over large areas, covering entire continents or ocean basins. Surface synoptic...

Waterspouts are violent vortices of sea (or lake) water and mist. They usually form in tropical and subtropical regions within 100 km of...

Tropical Storm Gonzalo travelled to the south of Grenada this weekend. Gonzalo was small and there was a lot of uncertainty over the peak...

Weather fronts tend to form around low pressure systems and are commonly associated with adverse weather. They represent the boundary...

The subtropical ridge is a belt of high pressure at a latitude of approximately 30° in both the northern and southern hemispheres. The...

The trade winds are caused by a combination of the temperature gradient between the equator and the poles and the rotation of the Earth....

Waves are caused by friction between the wind and water surface. The energy transferred from the wind to the ocean during strong wind...

Three elements are necessary for thunderstorm development; humidity, atmospheric instability, and a lifting force. Humidity Humidity is...

High and low pressure systems are synoptic scale weather features that produce very different conditions. High pressure systems, such as...

Jet streams are narrow bands of strong westerly winds that form near the tropopause at the intersections of the Hadley, Ferrel, and Polar...

The intertropical convergence zone (ITCZ) is the ascending arm of the northern and southern hemisphere Hadley cells, where the trade...

Hurricanes, tropical cyclones, or typhoons (depending on where you live) are immensely powerful weather systems. They act like massive...

Hail are pellets of frozen rain that fall from cumulonimbus clouds.

Earth’s weather is fundamentally driven by the temperature different between the equator and the poles. The equator is warmer because it...

The El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is a sporadic climate pattern that is caused by sea surface temperature anomalies in the Pacific.

Coastal winds differ from winds in the open ocean because they are heavily influenced by the interface between the land and the sea.

Clouds are formed when humid air at the surface of the Earth rises and cools.

Currents are like rivers of water flowing within the ocean and can occur on the surface or deep within the ocean.