What's It Like Out?

This book introduces the tools scientists use to predict the weather. Chapters highlight the history of forecasting, folk sayings, the importance of inventions such as the thermometer and the barometer, and vital tools such as anemometers, hygrometers, rain gauges, radar, weather balloons, satellites, and computer models. Readers will learn about short- and long-term weather prediction, how weather information is shared across the globe, and the future of forecasting. Full-color photographs, bold glossary words, and an index support this easy-to-read, engaging text. Detailed maps Glossary of key words Index Informative sidebars Table of contents The What's It Like Out? series introduces readers to the science of weather. Clear, helpful diagrams support easy-to-read text that brings important concepts to life. Individual books highlight how and why weather happens, from the molecules in the air to the most violent storms on Earth. Discover how clouds and raindrops form, why the wind blows, where tornadoes and hurricanes are most common, and how they form. Also, learn about the tools forecasters use to predict these weather conditions. Full-color photographs, bold glossary terms, and an index support this engaging series.

This book introduces where, why, when, and how often hurricanes occur. Engaging text breaks down concepts for the reader, such as air pressure differences, cloud formation, updrafts, rising air, and rotating winds. Chapters highlight the progression from tropical disturbance to tropical depression to hurricane based on wind speeds, as well as hurricane structure from rain bands to the eyewall to the eye. Readers will learn how hurricanes are classified by wind speed on the Saffir-Simpson Scale, how scientists predict a storm's path to issue watches and warnings, how conditions change as a storm approaches an area, how winds and storm surge cause damage, and how to stay safe during a hurricane. Clear, helpful diagrams, full-color photographs, bold glossary words, and an index support this easy-to-read, engaging text. Detailed maps Glossary of key words Index Informative sidebars Table of contents The What's It Like Out? series introduces readers to the science of weather. Clear, helpful diagrams support easy-to-read text that brings important concepts to life. Individual books highlight how and why weather happens, from the molecules in the air to the most violent storms on Earth. Discover how clouds and raindrops form, why the wind blows, where tornadoes and hurricanes are most common, and how they form. Also, learn about the tools forecasters use to predict these weather conditions. Full-color photographs, bold glossary terms, and an index support this engaging series.

This book introduces how different types of precipitation form and the dangers and benefits they provide. Readers will learn how fast-moving molecules escape bodies of water through evaporation, how air rises, how the dew point affects condensation and the formation of clouds, and how cloud droplets grow and become heavy enough to fall as precipitation. Other chapters highlight raindrop shapes, hailstorms and the layers that form when hail circulates in strong updrafts, the difference between sleet and freezing rain, and snowflake formation with a sidebar on snowflake shapes. Measuring precipitation using rain gauges and snow courses, how water moves across the earth from the ocean to clouds to the ground and back again, accompanied by a diagram of the hydrologic cycle, and precipitation extremes, including flash floods and droughts, are also discussed. Clear, helpful diagrams, full-color photographs, bold glossary words, and an index support this easy-to-read, engaging text. Detailed maps Glossary of key words Index Informative sidebars Table of contents The What's It Like Out? series introduces readers to the science of weather. Clear, helpful diagrams support easy-to-read text that brings important concepts to life. Individual books highlight how and why weather happens, from the molecules in the air to the most violent storms on Earth. Discover how clouds and raindrops form, why the wind blows, where tornadoes and hurricanes are most common, and how they form. Also, learn about the tools forecasters use to predict these weather conditions. Full-color photographs, bold glossary terms, and an index support this engaging series.

This book breaks down concepts relating to what causes wind, as well as where certain winds blow and why they occur there. Readers will learn how the sun heats the earth unevenly, causing air pressure differences, or gradients, how the Coriolis effect influences wind patterns, how helpful winds spread pollen and turn turbines for wind power, and how scientists use anemometers, wind socks, and weather vanes to measure wind direction and speed. Chapters explain large wind systems such as Hadley, Ferrel, and Polar cells, trade winds, polar easterlies, prevailing westerlies, the intertropical convergence zone, the doldrums, and the horse latitudes. Monsoon winds, land and sea breezes, mountain breezes, Santa Ana and Chinook winds, wind shear's effect on tornado formation, and how pressure differences and the Coriolis effect help hurricanes form are also discussed. Clear, helpful diagrams, full-color photographs, bold glossary words, and an index support this easy-to-read, engaging text. Detailed maps Glossary of key words Index Informative sidebars Table of contents The What's It Like Out? series introduces readers to the science of weather. Clear, helpful diagrams support easy-to-read text that brings important concepts to life. Individual books highlight how and why weather happens, from the molecules in the air to the most violent storms on Earth. Discover how clouds and raindrops form, why the wind blows, where tornadoes and hurricanes are most common, and how they form. Also, learn about the tools forecasters use to predict these weather conditions. Full-color photographs, bold glossary terms, and an index support this engaging series.

This book introduces the most violent storms on Earth. Readers will learn where tornadoes are most common, such as Tornado Alley, when they are most likely to occur, and why. Chapters highlight how storms form, the effects of air pressure, temperature, and moisture differences, wind shear, storm rotation and the formation of a mesocyclone, funnel clouds, and how spinning air reaches from cloud to ground to form a tornado. Other sections cover the dangers of multiple tornadoes from tornado families or tornado outbreaks, the variety of possible tornado sizes and shapes, storm chasers, and how to stay safe during a tornado. Why scientists study tornado damage paths, how they measure tornado strength using the Enhanced Fujita Scale, included in a sidebar, and what they look for on Doppler radar to help predict tornado formation are also discussed. Clear, helpful diagrams, full-color photographs, bold glossary words, and an index support this easy-to-read, engaging text. Detailed maps Glossary of key words Index Informative sidebars Table of contents The What's It Like Out? series introduces readers to the science of weather. Clear, helpful diagrams support easy-to-read text that brings important concepts to life. Individual books highlight how and why weather happens, from the molecules in the air to the most violent storms on Earth. Discover how clouds and raindrops form, why the wind blows, where tornadoes and hurricanes are most common, and how they form. Also, learn about the tools forecasters use to predict these weather conditions. Full-color photographs, bold glossary terms, and an index support this engaging series.

This book breaks down the concept of cloud formation to explain evaporation, water vapor, the four ways air rises, including convection, convergence, and orographic and frontal lifting, the dew point, condensation, and the formation of cloud droplets. Readers will also learn about updrafts, downdrafts, the life cycle of a storm cloud, and cloud names beginning with Luke Howard's classification system. Other chapters highlight low, middle, high, and vertical clouds, including stratus, stratocumulus, nimbostratus, altostratus, altocumulus, cirrus, cirrocumulus, cirrostratus, cumulus, and cumulonimbus clouds, as well as unusual cloud formations such as anvil, mammatus, and lenticular clouds, and contrails. The importance of clouds to the hydrologic cycle and the earth's temperature is also discussed. Clear, helpful diagrams, full-color photographs, bold glossary words, and an index support this easy-to-read, engaging text. Detailed maps Glossary of key words Index Informative sidebars Table of contents The What's It Like Out? series introduces readers to the science of weather. Clear, helpful diagrams support easy-to-read text that brings important concepts to life. Individual books highlight how and why weather happens, from the molecules in the air to the most violent storms on Earth. Discover how clouds and raindrops form, why the wind blows, where tornadoes and hurricanes are most common, and how they form. Also, learn about the tools forecasters use to predict these weather conditions. Full-color photographs, bold glossary terms, and an index support this engaging series.