Weather or climate? Reading the sky
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What you will learn
By the end, you can tell weather from climate and name the tools that measure the weather.
One rainy afternoon is weather — it changes hour by hour. A place that is rainy most of the year has a rainy climate. Weather is today; climate is the pattern over many years.
Read the explanation
Weather is what the sky is doing right now: sunny, rainy, windy, hot or cold. Climate is the usual pattern of weather in a place over many years. Deserts have a dry climate, rainforests have a wet one. We measure weather with tools: a thermometer for temperature, a rain gauge for rainfall, and a wind vane for wind direction.
- Weather is what is happening now.
- Climate is the pattern over many years.
- A thermometer measures temperature.
- A rain gauge measures rainfall.