# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
This lists the logos of programs or partners of NG Education which have provided or contributed the content on this page. Program

1. Activate students' prior knowledge about extreme weather on Earth.
Ask: What do you know about extreme weather on Earth? Have students brainstorm a list of weather-related words and phrases. Write their responses on the board. Then ask students to sort the list into logical categories, such as types of weather, tools to measure weather, and effects of weather.

2. Discuss a photo gallery of extreme weather.
Tell students they will look at a photo gallery of extreme weather and then watch a video about weather. Display the photo gallery Extreme Weather. Invite volunteers to read aloud each caption. Then, show the National Geographic video "Weather 101." Ask students to describe the extreme weather events. Then ask: What are the necessary conditions for each weather event to occur? Elicit responses from students such as: differences in circulating air masses, clashing warm and cool air masses ( fronts), and jet streams. Ask: What are the factors that affect extreme weather? Elicit responses from students such as: the sun ( temperature), water ( precipitation), and other atmospheric conditions like jet stream, pressure, wind, humidity, and clouds.

3. Have students complete the worksheet Weather Investigation.
Distribute a copy of the worksheet Weather Investigation to each student. Read aloud the directions and go over the provided answer. Allow students to gather and organize the information they have learned about weather and atmospheric conditions present for each type of weather. Their answers should include the following:

Tornado: clouds, strong wind, rain, hail

Hurricane or cyclone: strong wind, heavy rain

Blizzard: heavy snow, ice, cold temperatures

Dust storm: strong winds, arid conditions

Flood: heavy rainfall

Hail storm: cold or warm temperatures, rain, ice

Ice storm: freezing rain

After students have completed the worksheet, ask: What patterns do you see?

4. Have students make connections between weather and climate.
Ask: What is climate? How does climate relate to weather? Some students may understand that the climate in areas closer to the Equator has fewer extremes than in the areas farther away from the Equator. Make sure students understand that the term weather describes conditions in the atmosphere over a short period of time. The term climate describes weather patterns of a particular region over a longer period, usually 30 years or more. Climate is an average pattern of weather for a particular region. Build background by providing the following example: The weather in Wisconsin can vary from day to day. Some days can be very warm, with record temperatures over 100˚Fahrenheit (F), with other summer days not even reaching 70˚F. Winter temperatures can vary just as much. The climate however, is a trend over an extended period of time. Temperature trends in the Midwest show an overall warming of between 0.3˚F to 1.8˚F from data collected during the period of 1895-2006.

Informal Assessment

Ask students to orally describe:

examples of weather on Earth and the atmospheric conditions present

the difference between weather and climate

Background Information

Articles & Profiles

Websites

Credits

Media Credits

The audio, illustrations, photos, and videos are credited beneath the media asset, except for promotional images, which generally link to another page that contains the media credit. The Rights Holder for media is the person or group credited.

Writer

Anna Mika, M.S. Ed., NASA Network of Educator Astronaut Teachers (NEAT)

Editors

Anne Haywood, National Geographic Society
Christina Riska Simmons

Educator Reviewers

Dianne Koval Butler, Manager, Education Outreach & Partnerships, Lockheed Martin Corporate Communications
Naveen Cunha, M.Ed., Science Teacher, Stephen F. Austin Middle School, Bryan, Texas; NASA/Einstein Distinguished Educator Fellow

Expert Reviewer

Buddy Nelson, Media Relations, Lockheed Martin Space Systems

National Geographic Program

Wildest Weather in the Solar System

User Permissions

For information on user permissions, please read our Terms of Service. If you have questions about how to cite anything on our website in your project or classroom presentation, please contact your teacher. They will best know the preferred format. When you reach out to them, you will need the page title, URL, and the date you accessed the resource.

Media

If a media asset is downloadable, a download button appears in the corner of the media viewer. If no button appears, you cannot download or save the media.

Text

Text on this page is printable and can be used according to our Terms of Service.

Interactives

Any interactives on this page can only be played while you are visiting our website. You cannot download interactives.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Students use prior knowledge, a photo gallery, and a video to discuss what they already know about extreme weather on Earth and brainstorm and categorize a list of weather-related words and phrases. Then they identify the necessary conditions for weather events to occur, and the factors that affect extreme weather.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Severe weather can happen anytime, in any part of the country. Severe weather can include hazardous conditions produced by thunderstorms, including damaging winds, tornadoes, large hail, flooding and flash flooding, and winter storms associated with freezing rain, sleet, snow and strong winds.
Know your Risk
Understand the type of hazardous weather that affects you and your family where you live:

Take Action

Develop an emergency plan based on your local weather hazards and practice your plan.

Associated Content

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Understand the type of severe weather that affects where you live, then learn how to make an emergency plan. Severe weather can happen anytime, in any part of the country. Severe weather can include hazardous conditions produced by thunderstorms, including damaging winds, tornadoes, large hail, flooding and flash flooding, and winter storms associated with freezing rain, sleet, snow and strong winds.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Weather & atmosphere education resources

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The term weather describes the state of the atmosphere at a given point in time and geographic location. Weather forecasts provide an estimate of the conditions we expect to experience in the near future and are based on statistical models of similar conditions from previous weather events.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
In September 1900 a hurricane accompanied by a 15.7-foot storm surge hit Galveston in Texas. At the time Galveston had a population of 37,000 and around 20% lost their lives. At today's prices property damage was put at $700 million.

Between October 1923 and April 1924 Marble Bar in Western Australia experienced 160 consecutive days when the temperature topped 37.8°C (100°F).

In 1927 flooding in the Lower Mississippi claimed between 250 and 1,000 lives and left 700,000 homeless.

In 1974 Cyclone Tracy hit Darwin in Australia's Northern Territory, killing 71 people and destroying more than 70% of the town's buildings.

In October 1987 the worst storm hit southern England since 1703, causing 18 deaths and widespread damage. Such events are expected to happen only once in several hundred years, but three years later a similar storm of comparable intensity hit the UK.
The last ten years seem to have had more than the usual share of extreme weather events.

In January 2002 the temperature in the Australian state of New South Wales soared to 42.9°C (109°F). This was 8°C higher than the average summer temperature and it was hot enough to kill 1,453 flying foxes, or giant fruit bats.
Image: Fruit Bats.

Hurricane Katrina hit South East Louisiana in late August 2005. It was the costliest natural disaster in US history. At least 1,836 people died in the actual hurricane and in the flood that followed after the levees failed. 80% of New Orleans was under water. Total property damage was estimated at $81 billion.

In July 2010 temperatures in Moscow reached 39°C (102°F) for the first time in recorded history. For 35 days the temperature reached at least 30°C (86°F) and more than 10,000 died in Moscow alone as a result of the sweltering conditions. Throughout that summer, wildfires raged out of control and 1.6 million acres were destroyed. The drought lasted right through July and August and 40% of the country's annual grain yield was lost.

In April 2011 yet another weather disaster hit the United States. This time at least 100 individual tornadoes descended on the states of Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, Tennessee, Georgia, Louisiana and Virginia. At least 310 people lost their lives and the storms caused billions of dollars in property damage.
These are just four examples of extreme weather events occurring in the past ten years, but they are by no means isolated events. Since 2000 there have been a whole series of summer heat waves, winter freezes, tropical cyclones, tornadoes, wildfires, floods and everything else in between.

It is small wonder that people have begun to question whether or not this apparent increase in extreme weather events is due to changes in the world's climate pattern. The problem facing meteorologists is that extremes are not particularly good indicators of trends.

More comprehensive weather recording and enhanced awareness arising from current concerns about climate change means that events that in the past would have probably gone unnoticed are now widely reported. This lack of comprehensive historic record makes it very difficult to make accurate comparisons between past and present trends.

Weather forecasting, we are always being told, is an imprecise science. The problem facing scientists is deciding which weather indicators are useful and which are not. EUMETNET have set up the Meteoalarm website for extreme weather alerts in Europe.

There is still much that is not understood about the Earth's climate pattern and the various factors that influence our weather. However there is a strong and credible body of evidence, based on multiple lines of research that indicate a trend towards global warming.

This warming might well be part of a natural cyclical process. We know that the Earth experiences warmer and colder periods, but a careful scientific consideration of current available evidence convinces scientists that these changes are in a large part caused by human activities as larger amounts of greenhouse gases are released into the Earth's atmosphere.

Given that the world's climate is changing, the next question to be answered is whether or not the recent run of extreme climatic events is as a result of this, or whether it is purely coincidental.

In its publication: Weather extremes in a changing climate: Hindsight on Foresight the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) points out that the years 2010, 2005, and 1998 rank as the warmest on record, with the last ten years also being the warmest ever recorded. It was also a decade marked by numerous weather and climatic extremes that were unique in both strength and impact.

WMO concedes that while it is impossible to say that an individual event was ''caused'' by climate change, it is reasonable to anticipate that the magnitudes, frequency and duration of extreme weather events are likely to be altered as the Earth's atmosphere warms due to the increased concentrations of greenhouse gases.

The problem now faced by the world is what are we going to do about it?

Climate change is regarded as inevitable and there is nothing anyone can do about it. Switching off all emissions will not stop global warming, but if we can reduce the amount of greenhouse gas that we send into the atmosphere, this will reduce the pace of warming and slow down the number of extreme climatic events.

The world is highly vulnerable to meteorological extremes and the reduction of this vulnerability should be an essential target in the process of adapting to climate change, says WMO. Nations need to strengthen their research and their observing and monitoring capabilities. It is important to develop new methods if climate early warning and capabilities for climate system monitoring. And as a matter of urgency this should extend to the advancement of facilities in developing countries.

var a2a_config = a2a_config || {};

a2a_config.onclick = 1;

Follow: Twitter / Facebook / Google+ / Pinterest

Back to the Homepage

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Climate change is linked to the increasing number of extreme weather events throughout the world. Although it is impossible to stop global warming, this process can be slowed down by the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, which in turn will reduce the number of these extreme events.