How Weather Works

When a front passes over an area, it means a change in the weather. Many fronts cause weather events such as rain, thunderstorms, gusty winds and tornadoes.

Learn about weather map symbols and how they are used to make predictions of the weather.

Air moves around the planet in a consistent pattern, called atmospheric circulation. Learn how convection and the spinning of the Earth create the prevailing winds.

How do we know what the pressure is? How do we know how it changes over time? Standing on the ground and looking up, it might not look like anything is there, especially if there are no clouds in the sky. But what you don’t see is air – lots of it. We live at the bottom of the atmosphere, and the weight of all the air above us is called air pressure.

Wind is air moving from a place that has higher pressure to one that has lower pressure. Sometimes wind is just a light breeze and other times it is strong enough to blow the roofs off buildings.

The amount of water vapor in the air is called humidity.

Water can be in the atmosphere, on the land, in the ocean, and underground. It moves from place to place through the water cycle.

A glossary of common weather related words.

Test your knowledge with one of our games or gain a deeper understanding of weather through a simulation.